# I wonder why I still need cable TV



## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I watch a lot of TV shows on my roku 4. There is not a lot to watch on cable TV anymore since history Channel went reality TV and history Channel 2 changed into a new Channel. And I can get history vault on my roku 4 now

I only watch a few shows on cable now. I use my roku 4 a lot more then my tivo. And 

Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Maybe you don't but I watch:

Shameless
Bates Motel
Walking Dead
Bill Maher
Masters of Sex
Homeland
Silicon Valley
Fargo
Orphan Black
John Oliver
Halt and Catch Fire
Rectify
The Missing
Better Call Saul
Amy Schumer
UnReal
People Vs OJ and equivalent
Sam Bee
Banshee - ending
Comcast Sportsbet for Hockey

The wife has a bunch of cooking shows

Yea some of that you can get streaming but your not talking about money you talking about non-OTA channels.

Infact I would ask whats the point of broadcast I watch very little on it and much of it is reality and cross marketing craziness.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

Just for fun, let's see how many of these are available on streaming:



zalusky said:


> Maybe you don't but I watch:
> 
> Shameless - Amazon Prime + Showtime Add-on
> Bates Motel - Netflix
> ...


So, you'd be missing out on some of you favorite shows, and you would have to wait for some others to show up on the streaming services. For my wife and me, there were only a couple that we missed out on, so we just use the money we save on cable to buy them on Amazon or iTunes. Anyone considering cancelling cable should do the same analysis.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

tootal2 said:


> I watch a lot of TV shows on my roku 4. There is not a lot to watch on cable TV anymore since history Channel went reality TV and history Channel 2 changed into a new Channel. And I can get history vault on my roku 4 now
> 
> I only watch a few shows on cable now. I use my roku 4 a lot more then my tivo. And
> 
> Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk





zalusky said:


> Maybe you don't but I watch:
> 
> Shameless
> Bates Motel
> ...


Personally, much of my viewing is OTA, plus AMC (TWD, FTWD, BCS), FX (The Strain, The Americans), and TNT (The Last Ship). To that end, I am probably on one of the few cable systems that has ESPN, TNT, CNN, and FX in the StarterTV ($20/mo) package, so I can get all my viewing from TWC's StarterTV.

That being written, I would find it interesting if one could make do with one of the Sling packages + OTA... And I believe if I didn't have the channels I do in my base package, I'd subscribe to the Sling Beta to get my shows...

The Roku is an amazing little device...

Cheers!
-Doug


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

ncted said:


> Just for fun, let's see how many of these are available on streaming:
> 
> So, you'd be missing out on some of you favorite shows, and you would have to wait for some others to show up on the streaming services. For my wife and me, there were only a couple that we missed out on, so we just use the money we save on cable to buy them on Amazon or iTunes. Anyone considering cancelling cable should do the same analysis.


Just for fun, how about mentioning that most of the shows listed are only available for streaming if they are past seasons and not the current ones. Last time I checked, Netflix doesn't stream current shows, except for the ones they produce.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Cable is easy. I also pay for the Charter Spectrum (I think) Gold package which gives us way more than we need. But, yeah my wife watches a ton of cooking shows. I'm watching the hockey playoffs on NBCSN. I think we pay about $90 a month. I think that is reasonable. 

I also record a ton on my TiVo and archive as I desire. This feature alone makes the cable package worth it.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

You left out not being able to zap commercials when streaming in many cases.

You left out how it can be pretty damaging to the WAF when she has to figure which app to use to get one of the shows. 

Are the spouse cooking channels shows on Hulu? If not its a deal breaker.

I am not sure I would want to wait a year for hot shows like Walking Dead that will be totally spoiled assuming they are even available.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

ncted said:


> Just for fun, let's see how many of these are available on streaming:
> 
> So, you'd be missing out on some of you favorite shows, and you would have to wait for some others to show up on the streaming services. For my wife and me, there were only a couple that we missed out on, so we just use the money we save on cable to buy them on Amazon or iTunes. Anyone considering cancelling cable should do the same analysis.


Yep. Add PS Vue to the mix and you get nearly everything in that list, including ones not on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu and current/live ones. You can even ffwd through some commercials, and the ones you can't are much shorter than they are on cable. I switched my parents to PS Vue, and they don't miss their $120 cable bill at all. PBS is the only tricky one where you have to dig a little to find what you want.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

I get plenty of cooking shows via Sling TV which has Food Network, Cooking channel, HGTV, Travel channel, DIY, History and more for a pretty reasonable fee. I wasn't feeling well last night and didn't feel like watching anything in particular so just binged on a little Triple D on Food TV. 

We cut the cord over 5 years ago. With the thousands we've saved over the time I think I can buy a season of something here or there on Amazon should there be a show we just can't miss. OR just wait a year for it to hit Netflix at no extra cost (since we're paying for Netflix no matter what anyway).

To answer the question do you need cable....Yes and No, just all depends on what you watch. For us, 80% of what we watch is OTA for free via Tivo (and frankly almost everything there is available on Hulu commercial free anyway, other then CBS). The rest is all streaming one way or another. List out all your programs you can't live without and find out how you can get them if you cut the cord. Then just see if it's worth it or not.


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## dfreybur (Jan 27, 2006)

We cut the cord, again. We only got cable this time because it came with the house so we road out our minimal contract while we shopped for an antenna and roof installation.

Now we watch news OTA. And since the channels are there whatever network shows we would have gotten over cable instead.

Since we have antenna we started scanning PBS for shows similar to what we watched on FoodTV, Cooking Channel, HGTV and DIY. While there are no direct comparisons the equivalency is good enough for us.

We have Netflix and Amazon Prime subscriptions for streaming. If it's not on those we don't watch them.

Combined we rarely keep up so the few shows we miss there is no time anyways. We hardly watch enough Chopped or Iron Chef streamed to even notice what season they are in.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

bonscott87 said:


> We cut the cord over 5 years ago. With the thousands we've saved over the time I think I can buy a season of something here or there on Amazon should there be a show we just can't miss. OR just wait a year for it to hit Netflix at no extra cost (since we're paying for Netflix no matter what anyway).


Always interested in seeing the math on the savings. Please post a breakdown if you can. Thanks. I'm just starting my seventh year. We've saved a lot of money, but, to be fair, we've spent a lot on things we would not have if we still had cable. We are really only starting to enjoy the economic fruits of my labor, but, even this year, I have spent a couple hundred on upgrades and improvements.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

ncted said:


> Just for fun, let's see how many of these are available on streaming:
> 
> So, you'd be missing out on some of you favorite shows, and you would have to wait for some others to show up on the streaming services. For my wife and me, there were only a couple that we missed out on, so we just use the money we save on cable to buy them on Amazon or iTunes. Anyone considering cancelling cable should do the same analysis.


I thought the same thing when I read his list, that most all of those shows are available via various streaming services. Although, in the case of basic cable shows (AMC, FX, USA, TV Land, TBS, etc.), you have to wait anywhere from a few months to a year for them to show up on Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime. I'm currently enjoying Angie Tribeca, which recently came to Hulu after debuting on TBS back in January. (If you liked the Airplane! and Naked Gun films, this is your kind of humor.)

Also, you don't need Amazon Prime to get either Showtime or Starz as streaming services. Both have their own standalone apps (although not on TiVo, alas). Showtime can also be added to a Hulu subscription, which IS fully supported in the new Hulu app on TiVo.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

mdavej said:


> Yep. Add PS Vue to the mix and you get nearly everything in that list, including ones not on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu and current/live ones. You can even ffwd through some commercials, and the ones you can't are much shorter than they are on cable. I switched my parents to PS Vue, and they don't miss their $120 cable bill at all. PBS is the only tricky one where you have to dig a little to find what you want.


If your streaming device supports it (and just about everything except TiVo and game consoles do), just install the PBS app. Sign up for a free PBS account and you have access to a lot of on-demand content, including new stuff that's recently aired. If you sign up for PBS Passport (with a donation of at least $5/mo or $60/yr), you get access to even more stuff to stream.

http://www.pbs.org/anywhere/home/

Otherwise, you could use the PBS channel on Plex, although it doesn't seem to allow HD video and is a bit of a workaround.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

wizwor said:


> Always interested in seeing the math on the savings. Please post a breakdown if you can. Thanks. I'm just starting my seventh year. We've saved a lot of money, but, to be fair, we've spent a lot on things we would not have if we still had cable. We are really only starting to enjoy the economic fruits of my labor, but, even this year, I have spent a couple hundred on upgrades and improvements.


Been forever since I did a breakdown. But on a simple level our DirecTV bill was north of $120/mo and that didn't include Sunday Ticket. Dropped that to $0. So that's at least $1400/yr savings, not including ST.

How $0? At the time I had Windows Media Center (free) for an OTA DVR (already had a 30+ yr old antenna on the house) and Netflix which we were already paying for.

Cost now?

*Netflix* - $7.99 (again, would have no matter what)
*Amazon Prime* - We have this anyway for shipping, so the video is basically a free toss in
*Hulu* - $11.99 - this is an extra charge now, only reason is because our CW station isn't HD nor DD 5.1. Only use "in season". Frankly, I could live with Hulu and CBS All Access and have no OTA at all, which I knew that before I purchased the Bolt. 
*Sling TV* - $20 - Recent added mainly to get the free/discounted Roku. I could easily drop in the summer it but it's nice to have around for just times you want to veg out to House Hunters or Chopped.  Once Vue is available on Roku I'm all over it since you can use your Vue login to authenticate on all the cable channel apps they carry.

So now would be $120 vs $32 per month. Still a huge savings.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

bonscott87 said:


> *Sling TV* - $20 - Recent added mainly to get the free/discounted Roku. I could easily drop in the summer it but it's nice to have around for just times you want to veg out to House Hunters or Chopped.


Which flavor of sling did you subscribe to? House of Mouse on one device? Or Murdoch on up to three devices at a time?

Cheers!
-Doug


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

mdavej said:


> Yep. Add PS Vue to the mix and you get nearly everything in that list, including ones not on Amazon, Netflix or Hulu and current/live ones. You can even ffwd through some commercials, and the ones you can't are much shorter than they are on cable. I switched my parents to PS Vue, and they don't miss their $120 cable bill at all. PBS is the only tricky one where you have to dig a little to find what you want.


PS Vue on the Tivo (integrated in) would be a game changer for Tivo. Tivo could market the bolt to a much bigger segment because they wouldn't need to use cable.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

People coming from satellite tend to save the most since they have to pay for internet separately. My only quibble with your math would be the cost of the Bolt. If you are paying a monthly or annual fee, you should trim your savings accordingly and if you are 'all in' you should subtract that from your total savings.

Quibbles. Sounds like you have actually saved thousands. 


bonscott87 said:


> Been forever since I did a breakdown. But on a simple level our DirecTV bill was north of $120/mo and that didn't include Sunday Ticket. Dropped that to $0. So that's at least $1400/yr savings, not including ST.
> 
> How $0? At the time I had Windows Media Center (free) for an OTA DVR (already had a 30+ yr old antenna on the house) and Netflix which we were already paying for.
> 
> ...


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

dstoffa said:


> Which flavor of sling did you subscribe to? House of Mouse on one device? Or Murdoch on up to three devices at a time?
> 
> Cheers!
> -Doug


The original, nothing on the Fox owned channels I care for to bother switching. Plus one major reason is ESPN for Monday Night Football, can't lose that.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

wizwor said:


> People coming from satellite tend to save the most since they have to pay for internet separately. My only quibble with your math would be the cost of the Bolt. If you are paying a monthly or annual fee, you should trim your savings accordingly and if you are 'all in' you should subtract that from your total savings.
> 
> Quibbles. Sounds like you have actually saved thousands.


True.

Charter would be $95/mo for TV after their initial deal and Uverse is even more expensive (my other two paytv options). So I just get Internet only from Charter right now.

I got a Bolt this past Christmas since between Rovi and Microsoft they basically killed Windows Media Center. No monthly yet as it's included the first year. Right now I'm looking at perhaps selling the Bolt before the monthly kicks in because honestly, I can live with streaming only at this point. Only thing I watch recorded on the Tivo anymore is CBS shows and I could do that with CBS All Access or (hopefully soon) Vue since it includes the major network VOD.


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

bonscott87 said:


> True.
> 
> Charter would be $95/mo for TV after their initial deal and Uverse is even more expensive (my other two paytv options). So I just get Internet only from Charter right now.
> 
> I got a Bolt this past Christmas since between Rovi and Microsoft they basically killed Windows Media Center. No monthly yet as it's included the first year. Right now I'm looking at perhaps selling the Bolt before the monthly kicks in because honestly, I can live with streaming only at this point. Only thing I watch recorded on the Tivo anymore is CBS shows and I could do that with CBS All Access or (hopefully soon) Vue since it includes the major network VOD.


I have Comcast (digitial starter) with all the main channels + HBO for 65 all in including taxes. It's not great but it's a decent price and my bet is in a year we'll have playstation vue or hulu with much cheaper prices for the content I like which is basically - locals+ news+ cnbc+ documentary related channels and HBO.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

wgameplaya said:


> I have Comcast (digitial starter) with all the main channels + HBO for 65 all in including taxes. It's not great but it's a decent price and my bet is in a year we'll have playstation vue or hulu with much cheaper prices for the content I like which is basically - locals+ news+ cnbc+ documentary related channels and HBO.


Does that price include high speed internet?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Knowing what you want to watch and knowing when new episodes are available to watch is two different things, even Netflix* House of Cards* is a pain for me to know when the new season is ready to watch, with TiVo I just go to the now Playing list and it all there, after setting the One-Pass I don't have to every give any though as to when it comes on in the fall or goes off in the summer or has a two hour episode, TiVo takes care of this for me. Every 3 to 4 years I will clean out old One-Pass for shows that have been canceled, I check on Google for that. Extra One-Pass items don't hinder my TiVo in any way that I can notice.


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

wizwor said:


> Does that price include high speed internet?


i have webpass which is $550 per year for 1 GB ethernet. works out to about 45 per month.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wgameplaya said:


> PS Vue on the Tivo (integrated in) would be a game changer for Tivo. Tivo could market the bolt to a much bigger segment because they wouldn't need to use cable.


In a few markets, PS Vue includes the local broadcast channels with cloud DVR functionality (just like the cable channels they carry). In all others, you pay $10 less but don't have those channels, although you still get some on-demand access to their network shows. My guess is that a lot of people, upon trying PS Vue, would realize they don't even need a TiVo for recording their local OTA stations.

After having had Hulu for awhile, I see far less value in my Roamio OTA's ability to record stuff from NBC, Fox and ABC. There are still benefits, though, especially with SkipMode, but if I were choosing between paying $12.50/mo for TiVo service and $12 for ad-free Hulu, I'm not sure I'd pick TiVo unless I was a big fan of CBS shows or I was someone who liked to keep whole seasons of shows for long periods and watch them later. Neither describes me.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Guess I will add my 2 cents. We are in a period where many people have lots of choices when it comes to "TV". The first thing people should embrace is there is no need for a one solution must fit all mentality. Or don't worry about what other people think is the best solution worry about what works best for you at this moment in time (and understand it may change). 

Every household as limitations based on their physical location. So depending on where one lives, you may not be able to receive OTA TV well, may not have cable available (or cable available from a preferred provider), may not have high speed Internet available, or may not be able to get Satellite service. So someone else's perfect solution may not even work where you live. 

I would think most people will be concerned with content availability, viewing experience, cost, & value. The fact we have has many choices as we do to meet our personal desires is a great thing. 

So to the original question/comment of "I wonder why I still need cable TV" - No one "needs" cable TV - However if it is the best solution to meet your families desires for TV or not is a very different and personal question that only you can answer.


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## Sixmm (Oct 2, 2015)

You didn't list any sports. As soon as we can get sports online I am cutting that cord!


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

NashGuy said:


> In a few markets, PS Vue includes the local broadcast channels with cloud DVR functionality (just like the cable channels they carry). In all others, you pay $10 less but don't have those channels, although you still get some on-demand access to their network shows. My guess is that a lot of people, upon trying PS Vue, would realize they don't even need a TiVo for recording their local OTA stations.
> 
> After having had Hulu for awhile, I see far less value in my Roamio OTA's ability to record stuff from NBC, Fox and ABC. There are still benefits, though, especially with SkipMode, but if I were choosing between paying $12.50/mo for TiVo service and $12 for ad-free Hulu, I'm not sure I'd pick TiVo unless I was a big fan of CBS shows or I was someone who liked to keep whole seasons of shows for long periods and watch them later. Neither describes me.


yeah but the point is Tivo has bunches of options to integrate in services like PS Vue. Either Vue itself, or Sling, Hulu's new service or it's own offering.

Right now a lot of people dont get the bolt becuase they dont want cable. Thsi lets them address everyone. They could market to a lot more people and market themselves as a cord cutting service. That's really the perfect play right now and they could start to grow again.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wgameplaya said:


> yeah but the point is Tivo has bunches of options to integrate in services like PS Vue. Either Vue itself, or Sling, Hulu's new service or it's own offering.
> 
> Right now a lot of people dont get the bolt becuase they dont want cable. Thsi lets them address everyone. They could market to a lot more people and market themselves as a cord cutting service. That's really the perfect play right now and they could start to grow again.


Yeah, I get what you're saying. What I was implying (but didn't spell out) is that, for most folks who would choose to subscribe to it, PS Vue (and similar competing services), either alone or in combination with other streaming services, is sufficient. For most people, there would be no need to combine PS Vue with an actual TiVo-style DVR that can record either live OTA or traditional cable TV channels. So then, why spend more $ on a TiVo that offers PS Vue? Why not just buy a less expensive Fire TV or other box that is a better all-round streamer?

The problem for TiVo is that their hardware is probably always going to cost more than much better-known streamers like Roku, Apple TV, etc. And on top of that, TiVo's DVR service will always have either an ongoing monthly fee or a high up-front lifetime fee. So naturally, TiVo will only be able to attract consumers who value DVR service enough to justify the premium they will pay for a TiVo over one of those less expensive streamers. The more a consumer relies on streaming, whether from Netflix, PS Vue, Hulu, etc. or some combination thereof, the less he relies on traditional OTA or cable TV and therefore the less value he assigns to the very thing that differentiates TiVo: great DVR service. Would adding a PS Vue or Sling TV app to TiVo help it land some more sales? Sure. But I'm skeptical that it would make a huge difference. And it may just help those additional TiVo buyers realize just how little they needed a DVR after all.

The following comment (and I've seen more than one person post something along these lines) sums it up:

"Hulu and CBS All Access covers all my OTA needs. Just need to keep up on the shows and watch them within a month of airing. I said in another thread I wish I had gotten my Roku in place before I bought the Tivo Bolt, I might have seriously considered not getting a Tivo for my OTA since streaming pretty much takes care of everything we need."

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=10838553


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

NashGuy said:


> Yeah, I get what you're saying. What I was implying (but didn't spell out) is that, for most folks who would choose to subscribe to it, PS Vue (and similar competing services), either alone or in combination with other streaming services, is sufficient. For most people, there would be no need to combine PS Vue with an actual TiVo-style DVR that can record either live OTA or traditional cable TV channels. So then, why spend more $ on a TiVo that offers PS Vue? Why not just buy a less expensive Fire TV or other box that is a better all-round streamer?
> 
> The problem for TiVo is that their hardware is probably always going to cost more than much better-known streamers like Roku, Apple TV, etc. And on top of that, TiVo's DVR service will always have either an ongoing monthly fee or a high up-front lifetime fee. So naturally, TiVo will only be able to attract consumers who value DVR service enough to justify the premium they will pay for a TiVo over one of those less expensive streamers. The more a consumer relies on streaming, whether from Netflix, PS Vue, Hulu, etc. or some combination thereof, the less he relies on traditional OTA or cable TV and therefore the less value he assigns to the very thing that differentiates TiVo: great DVR service. Would adding a PS Vue or Sling TV app to TiVo help it land some more sales? Sure. But I'm skeptical that it would make a huge difference. And it may just help those additional TiVo buyers realize just how little they needed a DVR after all.
> 
> ...


A couple thoughts

-- With the merger between Roku/Rovi- they may not have to pay each other so much on patents and perhaps make the devices more affordable for consumer and thus grow scale. I'd not be shocked to see the total cost of ownership of Tivo drop over time.

-- It' a solid point that Hulu w/ CBS is a 80% solution w/ say a PS Vue or other. I think the point tho is with thins like commercial skip and full integration across platforms Tivo could actually engineer a 110% solution that is a far better than just regular TV.


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## csell (Apr 16, 2007)

Sixmm said:


> You didn't list any sports. As soon as we can get sports online I am cutting that cord!


They do have sports online, such as MLB.com. However, the games are blacked out in the home area of the team. I don't see how anyone who is a big sports fan could all OTA. Nowadays, most baseball games are on a local cable sports network. NBA games are mostly TNT/TBS or ESPN. Hockey is mostly local cable sports network. NFL is really the only sport that you can watch all of your local team on a local OTA channel.


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

Right now no one streaming service is going to give you everything a cable or satellite service can. And I don't use cable so this is coming from a truthful cable cutter. If you are willing to use streaming services and ota you can get most of it.
If it's sports you want the core package with the PS Vue would do it in a lot of cases. Since I live in Los Angeles if I wanted to watch/record Kings or Ducks hockey games I would need the Fox regional channel for the area and NBC Sports Net. No problem with the Vue core package. If you're in a Comcast area scratch the regional sports net.
I could go on...it can actually fairly involved. One thing to remember is the Vue is the only service that lets you record any of the sports channel. Can't do that with Sling.
Streaming anything can get a bit dicey a times too..Remember what Netflix was like a few years ago. That's where TV over the internet is now. It will get better, it WILL NOT get any cheaper. Most people should keep their cable for the time being.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

tenthplanet said:


> Right now no one streaming service is going to give you everything a cable or satellite service can.


That's certainly true. Although one particular cable or satellite package may not give you everything you want either; there are different tiers and you may have to subscribe to a more expensive one to get everything you want.

It all depends on what programming you want to watch, whether you must see it as soon as it becomes available or can wait months for it, what sort of internet + TV deal you can get from your local provider(s), plus factors like how demanding you are about UI, the desire to long-term archive shows, desire to avoid long-term contracts and/or deal with certain companies, etc.

Generally speaking, my guess is that the fewer people there are in your household, the less you watch sports, the fewer basic cable series you consider "must-see," and the less of a TV fanatic you are in general, the more likely you are to be satisfied with a streaming-only setup.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

Sixmm said:


> You didn't list any sports. As soon as we can get sports online I am cutting that cord!


Really just depends on what sports and what channels.

Playstation Vue has most of the regional Fox Sports networks and other Fox sports channels. Sling TV just added them. ESPN is on both and you then have access to the ESPN app which gets you tons of stuff. NBC Sports and CBS Sports app are great as well. Pretty much every major sport except the NFL has full league packages available streaming for out of market games.

Very quickly sports are getting there streaming. It's only a matter of time.


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## Socal Tom (Sep 25, 2012)

We cut the cord about 6 months ago we were paying $106 per month plus Hulu and Netflix. Now it's 15 for tivo-acquired-by-rovi-for Ota and Hulu /Netflix. We didn't think it was worth $85 per month for Top Chef and a couple of other shows. 

Sent from my Lenovo A7600-F using Tapatalk


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I'm paying $100/mo. for 75mb HSI and all the Comcast channels + HBO. No way it's going to be cheaper with just internet and any of the streaming services that could come closest to replacing cable (like Vue). Hell just to replace all the sports I watch it'd be more expensive, not even counting cable networks.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

But you have competition there in the ATL. Out in the boonies, the cable company really sticks it to you. Internet alone is now $55, and a good package with HBO is $80. With taxes, we're looking at minimum $150. PS Vue's $35 package is about equivalent to a $70 cable package. So after taxes and local broadcast fees, you save about $45. That's precisely why I switched my parents to Vue, as they're on a fixed income. So that kind of savings is a big deal.

Like you, I'm in a different market and also have a combined internet + cable + HBO for around $100. So I wouldn't benefit much from cutting the cord at the moment. But when my sweet cable TV deal runs out, my rates will go up substantially and it's a whole different ball game. When that happens, I'll probably hold my nose and switch to Vue + OTA myself.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

mdavej said:


> But you have competition there in the ATL. Out in the boonies, the cable company really sticks it to you. Internet alone is now $55, and a good package with HBO is $80. With taxes, we're looking at minimum $150. PS Vue's $35 package is about equivalent to a $70 cable package. So after taxes and local broadcast fees, you save about $45. That's precisely why I switched my parents to Vue, as they're on a fixed income. So that kind of savings is a big deal.
> 
> Like you, I'm in a different market and also have a combined internet + cable + HBO for around $100. So I wouldn't benefit much from cutting the cord at the moment. But when my sweet cable TV deal runs out, my rates will go up substantially and it's a whole different ball game. When that happens, I'll probably hold my nose and switch to Vue + OTA myself.


Earlier in this thread I posted ones physical location really matters and to some degree will determine what makes sense when it comes to ones options for TV.

If you think a good cable package with HBO at $80 is allot you should see what you have to pay for satellite after you get out of the teaser periods. My parents (who live in a cable TV free zone ) pay over $80 for a mid level Dish package with no premiums and no DVR and there only choice for Internet isn't fast enough so they could both be streaming something at the same time.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

atmuscarella said:


> If you think a good cable package with HBO at $80 is allot you should see what you have to pay for satellite after you get out of the teaser periods. My parents (who live in a cable TV free zone ) pay over $80 for a mid level Dish package with no premiums and no DVR and there only choice for Internet isn't fast enough so they could both be streaming something at the same time.


I hear you. I used to have satellite as did my parents. The cost was insane. I'm grateful for what I have on cable, but it won't last much longer.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> Just for fun, how about mentioning that most of the shows listed are only available for streaming if they are past seasons and not the current ones. Last time I checked, Netflix doesn't stream current shows, except for the ones they produce.


"you would have to wait for some"


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Sports. News. I want DirecTV just for sports, and then I realize even having just cable is insanely expensive for the amount I watch it. Oh well.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

Sports can still be an issue for some dropping cable/sat. Just depends on what sports.

News honestly shouldn't be an issue. There is so much free news streaming it's insane. CBS News streams 24x7 for free for example along with tons others all free.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

bonscott87 said:


> Sports can still be an issue for some dropping cable/sat. Just depends on what sports.
> 
> News honestly shouldn't be an issue. There is so much free news streaming it's insane. CBS News streams 24x7 for free for example along with tons others all free.


Yeah. I think live sports (ESPN, Fox Sports, etc.) continues to be the "killer app" for cable TV and what keeps more folks from cutting the cord. News isn't as big a deal unless you're a fan of a specific cable news channel like Fox News, MSNBC, etc. If you just want to know what's going on, yeah, there's lots of free sources including CBSN, which I watch sometimes.


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## KSOC Kid (Nov 19, 2015)

The sports channels I gave up are NFL Network,NHL Network, & MLB Network.
I pay for MLB.TV ($109) & NHL.TV ($130?).
Vue ($35) gives me access thru Amazon Fire stick ($40) & my laptop(s) to Fox Sports Florida & Fox Sports Sun, 3 ESPN Channels, FS1 & FS2, NBCSN, BTN, SEC, TBS. I'm sure I missed something.

I'm loaded for sports here and good OTA signal in Central FL. gets me plenty of NFL (least favorite sport of mine).
And streaming radio broadcasts too.
Different strokes for everyone but right now I'm really happy with my options.
And I only mentioned sports access.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

wgameplaya said:


> I have Comcast (digitial starter) with all the main channels + HBO for 65 all in including taxes. It's not great but it's a decent price and my bet is in a year we'll have playstation vue or hulu with much cheaper prices for the content I like which is basically - locals+ news+ cnbc+ documentary related channels and HBO.





wizwor said:


> Does that price include high speed internet?


In my area the Digital Starter is only for the cable.

I have the BlastPlus which includes high speed internet for ~$90/month. The cable package part of that is Digital Economy which is $40. (With a TiVo and CC you get HD channels so you also save on the HD box rental).

I also have HBONow on my Apple TV ($15) because it's cheaper that way than subscribing through Comcast. Plus you have access to the whole back catalog of shows.

I cut back from the Digital Starter to save money and the only thing I really miss is SyFy and BBC America.


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## lmacmil (Oct 26, 2015)

NashGuy said:


> If your streaming device supports it, just install the PBS app. Sign up for a free PBS account and you have access to a lot of on-demand content, including new stuff that's recently aired. If you sign up for PBS Passport (with a donation of at least $5/mo or $60/yr), you get access to even more stuff to stream.


We are strictly OTA since the beginning of the year. We watch a lot of PBS but our local PBS station doesn't always come in clearly due to our wooded lot so we do use the PBS app on Roku often. The only downside is that many, perhaps most, of the current shows, are only available for a couple weeks. Generally not a problem but not quite as good as the Tivo where I can store things indefinitely, space permitting.

I was not aware of PBS Passport and since we give our local station $100 annually, I need to check that out.


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## lmacmil (Oct 26, 2015)

tootal2 said:


> I watch a lot of TV shows on my roku 4. There is not a lot to watch on cable TV anymore...


There is a lot to watch on cable though perhaps little to interest you. We cut the cord in December and are getting along nicely with the major networks plus the Roku for Netflix and Amazon Prime. There are a few cable shows I do miss (e.g., The Americans, Broad City, Morning Joe) but so far I haven't felt the need (though the urge is there) to sign back up for cable. If I can last for a year w/o cable, I can probably last forever. We'll see if I make it to December.


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

javabird said:


> In my area the Digital Starter is only for the cable.
> 
> I have the BlastPlus which includes high speed internet for ~$90/month. The cable package part of that is Digital Economy which is $40. (With a TiVo and CC you get HD channels so you also save on the HD box rental).
> 
> ...


so i have 1gb fiber from webpass for 45 a month (550 a year). 
that puts me at 65+45 a month for both but I have 1gb and that includes hbo.
without hbo that's 95 a month.

i dont really want comcast internet and tv-- i am fairly confident at the end of teh promo period there will be psvue or hulu intergrated into tivo so i wont need cable at all


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## Eddie501 (Jun 4, 2004)

lmacmil said:


> There is a lot to watch on cable though perhaps little to interest you. We cut the cord in December and are getting along nicely with the major networks plus the Roku for Netflix and Amazon Prime. There are a few cable shows I do miss (e.g., The Americans, Broad City, Morning Joe) but so far I haven't felt the need (though the urge is there) to sign back up for cable. If I can last for a year w/o cable, I can probably last forever. We'll see if I make it to December.


Yes, there is a lot to watch. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of it is prescription drug commercials and marathons of junk like Storage Wars, Real Housewives, etc. Basic cable had become unwatchable to me.

I cut the cord over a year ago & haven't missed a single show that I used to watch. For must-see shows like Bates Motel, American Horror Story, etc, I just buy the season on Vudu. I still come out ahead and the added bonus is that the presentation is a lot better. No hashtags, no station logo, no block of text promoting some other show. I find that I enjoy these shows a lot better when I don't have to peek through the screen clutter.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Eddie501 said:


> Yes, there is a lot to watch. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of it is prescription drug commercials and marathons of junk like Storage Wars, Real Housewives, etc. Basic cable had become unwatchable to me.
> 
> I cut the cord over a year ago & haven't missed a single show that I used to watch. For must-see shows like Bates Motel, American Horror Story, etc, I just buy the season on Vudu. I still come out ahead and the added bonus is that the presentation is a lot better. No hashtags, no station logo, no block of text promoting some other show. I find that I enjoy these shows a lot better when I don't have to peek through the screen clutter.


Yeah, I agree about the absence of screen clutter. It's one reason to prefer Hulu over watching the same shows on your local OTA channels (or for a few shows, on cable). No time and temp logo bug, no severe weather alert radar or news ticker on the bottom of the screen, no pop-up animated ads for upcoming shows. And depending on which app you're using, the HD picture quality may be better via streaming than it would be watching on linear OTA or cable TV.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> Yeah. I think live sports (ESPN, Fox Sports, etc.) continues to be the "killer app" for cable TV and what keeps more folks from cutting the cord. News isn't as big a deal unless you're a fan of a specific cable news channel like Fox News, MSNBC, etc. If you just want to know what's going on, yeah, there's lots of free sources including CBSN, which I watch sometimes.


Sports is by far the big reason people aren't cancelling cable. But then you have stuff like presidential debates and most of the Olympics coverage. It's gotten to the point where it's pretty important to have, but it's not a good value at all.


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## schatham (Mar 17, 2007)

javabird said:


> In my area the Digital Starter is only for the cable.
> 
> I have the BlastPlus which includes high speed internet for ~$90/month. The cable package part of that is Digital Economy which is $40. (With a TiVo and CC you get HD channels so you also save on the HD box rental).
> 
> ...


Your not paying $40 on top of $90 are you. In my area Blast plus includes digital economy cable and HBO for $90. I have Internet pro (75 mb) which includes digital economy and Showtime for $81.95 or you can include HBO instead of showtime for $3 more. These are not special prices.


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## purwater (Aug 25, 2005)

My wife and I started a month long trial to see if we can cut the cord with Directv. It's been 10 days so far and I do miss the ability to just turn on the tv, and watch something on one of the channels I regularly watch. We have plenty to watch once we sit down for the evening. I picked up the Roamio OTA, and we've had a Roku for a few months already. We can stream anything we can get OTA, but I figured for those times when there might be an internet outage we will have a decent amount of recordings on the Tivo to watch. One of her favorite channels is ID, and that is the hardest one to get content from. Hulu has a few episodes of some shows, and we can record some Dateline episodes OTA, but the large selection isn't there. Instead of cancelling my Directv completely I did an account suspension so I wouldn't be charged while we did our trial run. I figured if we ended up wanting to keep it around it would be the simplest way. The sad part is that we're just outside of Comcast's service area, and we've tried 3 times to get service extended. They seem to have no interest in extending the line less than a mile. I have about 8 other neighbors that would sign up immediately if they would service us. I could save even more money with Comcast because internet is very expensive for us currently. It's bad when you can't get Comcast to take your money.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

PS Vue has just about everything you had on cable, including ID, for less than half the price.
http://www.techhive.com/article/304...o-know-about-sony-s-cable-tv-alternative.html


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## NickTheGreat (Aug 31, 2015)

As soon as I can watch college BB and FB I'll cut the cut. I'm talking the same day. TV is WAY too expensive for the amount of the garbage on there.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

purwater said:


> .. The sad part is that we're just outside of Comcast's service area, and we've tried 3 times to get service extended. They seem to have no interest in extending the line less than a mile. I have about 8 other neighbors that would sign up immediately if they would service us. I could save even more money with Comcast because internet is very expensive for us currently. It's bad when you can't get Comcast to take your money.


Same here for me except it is TWC, less than a mile from end of line and including me 10 homes between me and end of TWC lines.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NickTheGreat said:


> As soon as I can watch college BB and FB I'll cut the cut. I'm talking the same day. TV is WAY too expensive for the amount of the garbage on there.


Yeah, if they had college BB in really good quality HD streaming, I'd think about cutting the cord. I'm not sure how I would justify that much $$$ just for news and some other crap channels.

But the reality is that with the way Comcast prices internet-only almost as high as a basic bundle, I'd probably just do the Blast Plus! HBO bundle or something.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

purwater said:


> The sad part is that we're just outside of Comcast's service area, and we've tried 3 times to get service extended. They seem to have no interest in extending the line less than a mile. I have about 8 other neighbors that would sign up immediately if they would service us. I could save even more money with Comcast because internet is very expensive for us currently. It's bad when you can't get Comcast to take your money.


I have no idea what Comcast would charge to wire you, but Time Warner Cable will wire anyone in their service area, provided you pay them to bring the line in. How much? $4 per foot. That's $20,000 per mile. Comcast prices may differ, but you can see why they won't bring it in...

I am actually very fortunate that at my second home, in a rural area, actually has cableTV. People 1/2 mile away can't get it...

Cheers!
-Doug


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

ncted said:


> "you would have to wait for some"


Streaming services are essentially the same as On-Demand. If the service doesn't provide the shows you want when you want them then it sort of defeats the purpose. I like to watch shows when they air, albeit time-shifted so I can skip past the commercials. Most streaming services make you sit through commercials without the ability to skip past them. The ones that don't have commercials charge you a premium price to view their content, kind of like cable. I haven't checked the list of content provided by the major streaming services, but they don't all provide all content or support all of the major network programming, IIRC.

To answer the original question, nobody "needs" cable TV. It's a luxury, not a necessity. If you can find a service that provides all of the content you like to watch then that's probably the best choice for you. Cable, or in my case, FIOS, provides all of the content I like to watch and offers kick-ass internet service at a discount when I bundle them together with my phone service. In order to use a streaming service I still need an internet provider. If I drop my TV package and just go with internet, the cost goes up for the internet since I lose the bundle discount. I'd still have to pay for the streaming service so the cost savings isn't as much as you'd think. I might save about $25/month, which does add up in the long run, but I spend way more than that just for dinner for my wife and me so it's almost insiginificant. The only equipment I rent from Verizon is two cablecards.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

dstoffa said:


> I have no idea what Comcast would charge to wire you, but Time Warner Cable will wire anyone in their service area, provided you pay them to bring the line in. How much? $4 per foot. That's $20,000 per mile. Comcast prices may differ, but you can see why they won't bring it in...
> 
> I am actually very fortunate that at my second home, in a rural area, actually has cableTV. People 1/2 mile away can't get it...
> 
> ...


This is what they need:


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

NickTheGreat said:


> As soon as I can watch college BB and FB I'll cut the cut. I'm talking the same day. TV is WAY too expensive for the amount of the garbage on there.


Tons and tons of that available on the Watch ESPN app. You can use your Sling or Vue credentials or a lot of it available free with no login. Check it out. There is also the the Fox Sports app, CBS Sports, NBC Sports and so forth. Check the Sports section on the Roku to see the ton of stuff out there. Maybe it's not enough, but can check it out.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

purwater said:


> My wife and I started a month long trial to see if we can cut the cord with Directv. It's been 10 days so far and I do miss the ability to just turn on the tv, and watch something on one of the channels I regularly watch. We have plenty to watch once we sit down for the evening. I picked up the Roamio OTA, and we've had a Roku for a few months already. We can stream anything we can get OTA, but I figured for those times when there might be an internet outage we will have a decent amount of recordings on the Tivo to watch. One of her favorite channels is ID, and that is the hardest one to get content from. Hulu has a few episodes of some shows, and we can record some Dateline episodes OTA, but the large selection isn't there. Instead of cancelling my Directv completely I did an account suspension so I wouldn't be charged while we did our trial run. I figured if we ended up wanting to keep it around it would be the simplest way. The sad part is that we're just outside of Comcast's service area, and we've tried 3 times to get service extended. They seem to have no interest in extending the line less than a mile. I have about 8 other neighbors that would sign up immediately if they would service us. I could save even more money with Comcast because internet is very expensive for us currently. It's bad when you can't get Comcast to take your money.


Do you have some sort of DSL or VDSL now? Is there a franchise agreement that would require them to extend it for a certain number of subscribers? I know that Metrocast had to extend service to an island of summer homes in New Hampshire because the town's franchise agreement read that they had to build their cable plant out if they had 10 subscribers who would sign up for a year of service in one cable mile. Then a year or two later FairPoint plopped an RDSLAM in on the land side of where the 1950's-era telephone cables cross over to the island and serves most of the island with ADSL, and a couple years after that AT&T and Verizon both have fiber-fed LTE towers, where Metrocast had to spend a ton of money laying fiber underneath the water. Whoops. It is sad that Comcast as a business doesn't want to extend their system to take people's money. Also, have you posted on DSL Reports? They seem to know the ins and out of this stuff.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

schatham said:


> Your not paying $40 on top of $90 are you. In my area Blast plus includes digital economy cable and HBO for $90. I have Internet pro (75 mb) which includes digital economy and Showtime for $81.95 or you can include HBO instead of showtime for $3 more. These are not special prices.


No, the $90 is total for internet + cable.


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

purwater said:


> My wife and I started a month long trial to see if we can cut the cord with Directv. It's been 10 days so far and I do miss the ability to just turn on the tv, and watch something on one of the channels I regularly watch. We have plenty to watch once we sit down for the evening. I picked up the Roamio OTA, and we've had a Roku for a few months already. We can stream anything we can get OTA, but I figured for those times when there might be an internet outage we will have a decent amount of recordings on the Tivo to watch. One of her favorite channels is ID, and that is the hardest one to get content from. Hulu has a few episodes of some shows, and we can record some Dateline episodes OTA, but the large selection isn't there. Instead of cancelling my Directv completely I did an account suspension so I wouldn't be charged while we did our trial run. I figured if we ended up wanting to keep it around it would be the simplest way. The sad part is that we're just outside of Comcast's service area, and we've tried 3 times to get service extended. They seem to have no interest in extending the line less than a mile. I have about 8 other neighbors that would sign up immediately if they would service us. I could save even more money with Comcast because internet is very expensive for us currently. It's bad when you can't get Comcast to take your money.


Is there a "business" on your street by chance? I only ask because our church had ATT and DSL service for years. We desired faster Internet ad U Verse wasn't available. I called Comcast. They did a free survey and agreed to run a line from the pol, test it and install the Business Triple Play. 24 months for $110. Two Phone lines, basic channels and HSI (Business Class). This is about $20 cheaper than ATT. Plus the Internet is much faster

Was not charged for installation. Plus, now the house down the street can now get Comcast if they desire.


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## NickTheGreat (Aug 31, 2015)

bonscott87 said:


> Tons and tons of that available on the Watch ESPN app. You can use your Sling or Vue credentials or a lot of it available free with no login. Check it out. There is also the the Fox Sports app, CBS Sports, NBC Sports and so forth. Check the Sports section on the Roku to see the ton of stuff out there. Maybe it's not enough, but can check it out.


It's getting better and better every year. :up:


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## purwater (Aug 25, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Do you have some sort of DSL or VDSL now? Is there a franchise agreement that would require them to extend it for a certain number of subscribers? I know that Metrocast had to extend service to an island of summer homes in New Hampshire because the town's franchise agreement read that they had to build their cable plant out if they had 10 subscribers who would sign up for a year of service in one cable mile. Then a year or two later FairPoint plopped an RDSLAM in on the land side of where the 1950's-era telephone cables cross over to the island and serves most of the island with ADSL, and a couple years after that AT&T and Verizon both have fiber-fed LTE towers, where Metrocast had to spend a ton of money laying fiber underneath the water. Whoops. It is sad that Comcast as a business doesn't want to extend their system to take people's money. Also, have you posted on DSL Reports? They seem to know the ins and out of this stuff.


Currently we have a wireless solution that works, but it's very expensive. I've been to Comcast's local office, and they say they will come out and do a survey and let me know in a few days. I've been through that 3 times. A neighbor said they told him it would be several thousand dollars to extend the line a few years ago. We're about 0.7 mile from the end of the line in one direction, and 1.5 miles from Comcast in the other direction. We're in the gap in between that they show no interest in serving. If they quoted a reasonable price to extend service I'm sure that most of my neighbors would consider splitting the costs, but we don't even get a response anymore.

Cowboys2002 asked if we had any "business" near us. I've told Comcast that I would sign up for business class service if they would extend the line. I've told them I'd sign a 2 year contract if needed. I have Comcast business service here at work and it's always reliable and fast. Their business class is still quite a bit cheaper than we're paying currently.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

purwater said:


> Currently we have a wireless solution that works, but it's very expensive. I've been to Comcast's local office, and they say they will come out and do a survey and let me know in a few days. I've been through that 3 times. A neighbor said they told him it would be several thousand dollars to extend the line a few years ago. We're about 0.7 mile from the end of the line in one direction, and 1.5 miles from Comcast in the other direction. We're in the gap in between that they show no interest in serving. If they quoted a reasonable price to extend service I'm sure that most of my neighbors would consider splitting the costs, but we don't even get a response anymore.
> 
> Cowboys2002 asked if we had any "business" near us. I've told Comcast that I would sign up for business class service if they would extend the line. I've told them I'd sign a 2 year contract if needed. I have Comcast business service here at work and it's always reliable and fast. Their business class is still quite a bit cheaper than we're paying currently.


Wow that sucks. Do you have LOS to a site with Comcast where you could locate a Business Class account and basically run your own mini-WiSP? It's not hard to move 100mbps or more wirelessly these days.

What is your ISP and how much are you paying?


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## Brad Bishop (Sep 11, 2001)

Bigg said:


> Yeah, if they had college BB in really good quality HD streaming, I'd think about cutting the cord. I'm not sure how I would justify that much $$$ just for news and some other crap channels.
> 
> But the reality is that with the way Comcast prices internet-only almost as high as a basic bundle, I'd probably just do the Blast Plus! HBO bundle or something.


That's what I do. I've done the OTA antenna which, for me, got me like 8 of the 10 channels in the area but it can be problematic with some channels only working at certain times of the day and all that.

When I moved, which was back into a Comcast area, I took advantage of their skinny plan and got Blast Plus! (75Mbps internet + 45+ channels of pretty much what I'd want to see) for $60/mo. It took me about 2 months to straighten out the billing on it to get them to honor it, but they finally did. It was a stupid pain.

The thing is that going back to the channels that I would have though I would have wanted, well, they're largely crap. History is rarely about history. Discovery is rarely about discovery. The Weather Channel is largely not about the current weather. It's all reality nonsense.

Cable has a few really large problems:
- They don't sell you what they are trying to sell you. If you get a package for $80/mo, that won't include the cable box rental or "DVR" functionality and, sometimes, they'll still charge extra for access to HD. Consumers, rightfully, can't get their heads around why they're renting a box from the cable company for $15-20/month, which obviously supports HD and has a DVR inside of it, but they have to pay more for each. Cable companies, in turn, can't figure out why this pisses people off. This is outside the fact that if you sign up for an $80/mo plan that you'll probably end up on a $100/month plan (before all of the fees) because there's some requirement that you have to do to knock off the $20/month but by the time you notice it on your bill they will claim they can't do anything about it.
- Which gets me to: Customer Service.
- Finally: Content. Not the cable company's fault but they're selling crap at a premium.

I'd say that, overall, service is better now than it was 20 years ago when it was all analog. They used to have all kinds of leaks and one of your local channels would come in but be really fuzzy/barely watchable and they'd throw up their hands and say, "That's as good as it gets."

As such, when my deal finally ends in 9 months, I'll probably just stay on it and/or try to request a discount (which I hear they're no longer giving). For locals and news, when there is news, it's far nicer for stuff to just work. Plus, if I drop the TV portion then my internet service will go up to some ridiculous rate which will put me back into: May as well buy the TV service with it for just $10-20 more...


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I've mentioned before that I have double play with Comcast for $100/mo., so cable is really just $40 added cost not $80. And that's for all the cable channels + HBO. And this is the Tivo forum, the cable card is included so no DVR or HD fee.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

slowbiscuit said:


> I've mentioned before that I have double play with Comcast for $100/mo., so cable is really just $40 added cost not $80. And that's for all the cable channels + HBO. And this is the Tivo forum, the cable card is included so no DVR or HD fee.


My triple play is $159 inc HBO, SHO and STZ + 1 cable card + $2.50/month credit and no HD fee 150/Mb download internet service. ( I could opt for the Comcast DVR as another option)


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

javabird said:


> No, the $90 is total for internet + cable.


does that include the 20 or so in taxes and fees they add on?


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## Fernwood (Sep 11, 2014)

Cut the cord in 2009. Amazon Prime streaming & OTA along with Vuze works fine on the Roamio. There are better things to do that watch TV, IMO.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

wgameplaya said:


> does that include the 20 or so in taxes and fees they add on?


It's $93.44 total with taxes & fees (includes my Customer-owned equipment credit of -$2.50 for the Tivo CC).

I'm wondering about downgrading to the Double Play (performance 25). I mainly kept the Digital Economy to have Comedy Central and CNN, but now that Jon Stewart is gone I find I don't watch the Daily Show that much anymore, and i get most of my news from network news now. I wonder if I could live with the download speeds of ~25 since I like to stream on Apple TV.


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

javabird said:


> It's $93.44 total with taxes & fees, and my Customer-owned equipment credit of -$2.50 (for the Tivo CC).
> 
> I'm wondering about downgrading to the Double Play (performance 25). I mainly kept the Digital Economy to have Comedy Central and CNN, but now that Jon Stewart is gone I find I don't watch the Daily Show that much anymore, and i get most of my news from network news now. I wonder if I could live with the download speeds of ~25 since I like to stream on Apple TV.


that's a decent deal if your bill all in is 95.

i have 1gb ethernet fiber for 45 a month and 65 for digital +hbo so 110 all in with fees/taxes. it's a one year term agreement .

im guessing you have the 79.95 2 year deal. probably okay for 2 years. I like the one year term of mine because I feel like PS Vue or Hulu or others will launch w/ Tivo integration in the next year and I can dump le comcast


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## mattyro7878 (Nov 27, 2014)

Tonight I jumped around the Yankee game, Golden St vs OKC and The Stanley Cup Playoffs, all the while knowing I had Preacher and American Dad waiting for me. 5 Brand new shows that cant be had anywhere else. I pay about $60/mnth including Cox Preferred internet. The only reason this all works so well is my living situation. Landlord with 3 mini boxs upstairs and 3 roommates downstairs with mini boxes. They all get ch 2-99 and I (with my Bolt and Premiere) get 2-99 as well as Sports, Variety and HBO. I pay for my extra channels and also get Netflix and OTA. My point is a typical homeowner has to decide because the expenses add up. Everyone's living situation is a bigger factor than "what they want". I'm sure if anyone's sister moved in and offered to split the cable and internet costs, well you'd probably all keep the cord...not cut it. I've been pausing the basketball and hockey games; think I'll get back to it. Enjoy whatever crap you are forcing yourself to watch. (and telling yourself you like it)


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

mattyro7878 said:


> Enjoy whatever crap you are forcing yourself to watch. (and telling yourself you like it)


LOL.

Well, I haven't even turned the TV on in 2 weeks so there is that. Rain coming in this weekend so most likely I'll fire up the Roku and Hulu and watch the past 3 episodes thru the finales of Flash, Arrow, Agents of Shield and LOT. Need to catch up on Daredevil season 2 as well. I got so much stuff to watch and no time. :up:


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## bodosom (Apr 28, 2002)

atmuscarella said:


> Same here for me except it is TWC, less than a mile from end of line and including me 10 homes between me and end of TWC lines.


With certain exceptions TWC has to bring you service if you pay the line charge. You won't know how much it is util you get a contract from "construction". You don't have to sign the contract.

I called and got a "quote" which was almost twice what I ended up paying ($14k vs $8k). The people that call you back with a "quote" don't account for all the newly reachable households (potential customers) each of which reduces the total by hundreds of dollars.

In my case they didn't charge me for the distance past my house to reach the three houses past mine (< .25 mile) but I still got the discount.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

bodosom said:


> With certain exceptions TWC has to bring you service if you pay the line charge. You won't know how much it is util you get a contract from "construction". You don't have to sign the contract.
> 
> I called and got a "quote" which was almost twice what I ended up paying ($14k vs $8k). The people that call you back with a "quote" don't account for all the newly reachable households (potential customers) each of which reduces the total by hundreds of dollars.
> 
> In my case they didn't charge me for the distance past my house to reach the three houses past mine (< .25 mile) but I still got the discount.


That's not too bad, all considering. That extra quarter mile was probably almost nothing to them, and they got a couple more new subs out of it. Where is gets into mega-bucks is when you need new amps, rebuilds of parts of the existing plant to drive enough signal out to your extension, or when you need to add a new node and the fibre cables to feed the node.


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## JTHOJNICKI (Nov 30, 2015)

Our television viewing is about 50-50 OTA vs cable programming. I did extensive research into cord-cutting and choose to simply dump Dish & bundle my Internet and cable; plus an OTA DVR. My criteria:

1.) Watch current episodes when I want
2.) Skip as many commercials as possible
3.) Have access to OTA network programming and about 10 popular cable channels
4.) Fast Internet (75mbps or faster)

The only true cord-cutting option that came close to meeting these requirements was iTunes, but that option was thousands of dollars more that just bundling Internet & cable with Comcast and buying the TiVo equipment listed in my profile. I'm saving enough now to cover the cost of all the TiVo equipment in less than 1 year. I'm satisfied, but will keep an eye on new cord-cutting options going forward.


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## passname22 (Feb 17, 2015)

There's no need anymore, why pay $800 for tivo and pay monthly cable fee when netflix is $10 a month.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

passname22 said:


> There's no need anymore, why pay $800 for tivo and pay monthly cable fee when netflix is $10 a month.


The first 3 posts in this thread point out that you would miss out on a lot of shows and current seasons of shows and would need to purchase them elsewhere. 
You would also miss out on live programming.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

JTHOJNICKI said:


> Our television viewing is about 50-50 OTA vs cable programming. I did extensive research into cord-cutting and choose to simply dump Dish & bundle my Internet and cable; plus an OTA DVR. My criteria:
> 
> 1.) Watch current episodes when I want
> 2.) Skip as many commercials as possible
> ...


OTA (Tivo) plus PS Vue comes pretty darn close. Free/cheap streaming with no commercials is never going to happen (legally). But Vue will allow skip on some programs, has the most cable channels of any streaming service and on demand for most content, all for $30/month ($35 if you want more sports, $45 for the top package with 30 more channels).


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

mdavej said:


> OTA (Tivo) plus PS Vue comes pretty darn close. Free/cheap streaming with no commercials is never going to happen (legally). *But Vue will allow skip on some programs*, has the most cable channels of any streaming service and on demand for most content, all for $30/month ($35 if you want more sports, $45 for the top package with 30 more channels).


Agreed, plus I've noticed that if you press the right side of the ring on a FireTV remote while in Vue it skips in 10 sec intervals on just about every show I've played. I can't recall one NOT having that feature. I whack it 12 times for a commercial break and I'm right back to the show, almost as fast as SkipMode on TiVo.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

passname22 said:


> There's no need anymore, why pay $800 for tivo and pay monthly cable fee when netflix is $10 a month.


More importantly, why bother posting here?

Most of us care about current TV, not just whatever Netflix feels like offering from back catalogs (plus their own limited number of series). It's an adjunct, not a replacement.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

javabird said:


> I wonder if I could live with the download speeds of ~25 since I like to stream on Apple TV.


I make due with Time Warner Cable's "Everyday Low Price" internet speeds of (now) 3 Mbps. Netflix (via Roku) works fine, as did NHL.tv during the regular season.

Well wroth the $14.99 per month for it. I own my own modem and router, so I have no equipment fees.

Of course, I was the only user at the time...

Your mileage may vary...


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## schatham (Mar 17, 2007)

dstoffa said:


> I make due with Time Warner Cable's "Everyday Low Price" internet speeds of (now) 3 Mbps. Netflix (via Roku) works fine, as did NHL.tv during the regular season.
> 
> Well wroth the $14.99 per month for it. I own my own modem and router, so I have no equipment fees.
> 
> ...


It won't work well if 4 people are using the internet at the same time. 25mb is somewhat pushing it.

I have noticed much better streaming with 75mbs than my previous 25. I don't mean buffering, i mean less errors that might not be realized is because of the slower connection.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

passname22 said:


> There's no need anymore, why pay $800 for tivo and pay monthly cable fee when netflix is $10 a month.





dstoffa said:


> I make due with Time Warner Cable's "Everyday Low Price" internet speeds of (now) 3 Mbps. Netflix (via Roku) works fine, as did NHL.tv during the regular season.
> 
> Well wroth the $14.99 per month for it. I own my own modem and router, so I have no equipment fees.
> 
> ...


Different strokes for different folks. Earlier in this thread I posted that people need to find a solution that works for them and not worry what solution other people are using. I personally have no need for traditional Pay TV, I also have no need for Netflix or Hulu and while I have Amazon prime haven't watched any videos from them in months. OTA with a TiVo DVR works just fine for me. While I would like faster internet my 9ish Mbps service also mostly works good enough for me now. I don't really think I would like a 3 Mbps service but if it were a constant 3Mbps it would be better than what my DSL was a year ago when it dropped to 1ish Mbps each afternoon/night.


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## tootal2 (Oct 14, 2005)

I have been watching the history vault on my roku 4 a lot. 

Sent from my LG-H631 using Tapatalk


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## godsey1 (Jan 23, 2014)

We have been a Charter customer for 3 years now with their triple play. We started out with the basic and upgraded to silver after a couple months. The first bill was around $110 per month. The next year it went up to $140, and this year it went to $170. I am off work this week and am going in to the local office and see what they say about it going up like that. I want to find out how much it will cost to drop the phone, and maybe keep the internet and cable(go down a level). The internet, cable and Tivo package right now is perfect for us, but its got to be cheaper.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

godsey1 said:


> We have been a Charter customer for 3 years now with their triple play. We started out with the basic and upgraded to silver after a couple months. The first bill was around $110 per month. The next year it went up to $140, and this year it went to $170. I am off work this week and am going in to the local office and see what they say about it going up like that. I want to find out how much it will cost to drop the phone, and maybe keep the internet and cable(go down a level). The internet, cable and Tivo package right now is perfect for us, but its got to be cheaper.


Every time I try to drop or lessen my phone with fios, the bill goes up. Go figure.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

godsey1 said:


> We have been a Charter customer for 3 years now with their triple play. We started out with the basic and upgraded to silver after a couple months. The first bill was around $110 per month. The next year it went up to $140, and this year it went to $170. I am off work this week and am going in to the local office and see what they say about it going up like that. I want to find out how much it will cost to drop the phone, and maybe keep the internet and cable(go down a level). The internet, cable and Tivo package right now is perfect for us, but its got to be cheaper.


Same exact situation here. They have no bundle discounts for existing customers, so dropping the phone will save you some money. I'd made up my mind to go to OTA and PS Vue and called to cancel cable TV entirely. Only then did they give me a break on pricing. So for the next 12 months, I have Silver for $60 plus internet for $50. When that runs out, if they won't give me another deal, it's OTA and streaming for me.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dstoffa said:


> I make due with Time Warner Cable's "Everyday Low Price" internet speeds of (now) 3 Mbps. Netflix (via Roku) works fine, as did NHL.tv during the regular season.
> 
> Well wroth the $14.99 per month for it. I own my own modem and router, so I have no equipment fees.
> 
> ...


That sounds incredibly painful, especially considering that you have much faster options easily available. I can see that a lot of people would be fine with the absolute most basic 25/3 broadband, but any less than that is just substandard.

Personally, my absolute bare minimum would be 50/10, but here in CT, I believe that all houses in the state can get at least 100/10 (or something close to that). Most areas have 150 or 200mbps tiers.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

Bigg said:


> That sounds incredibly painful, especially considering that you have much faster options easily available. I can see that a lot of people would be fine with the absolute most basic 25/3 broadband, but any less than that is just substandard.
> 
> Personally, my absolute bare minimum would be 50/10, but here in CT, I believe that all houses in the state can get at least 100/10 (or something close to that). Most areas have 150 or 200mbps tiers.


While I indeed have much faster options easily available, I do not see the need for it. The next higher speed of internet available to me has a rack rate that is more than 3 times what I am paying now. And since this is located in my vacation home, I have no intention of spending much more on it. I am actually very lucky to have CableTV at all....

To that end, as I have said, I am typically the only user in the home. I can stream Netflix to my 720p HDTV no issue. I can stream Amazon Prime Video to my televisions no issue. I can stream NHLTV to said televisions, no issue. Since TWC went all-digital in my service area, I use the TWC-TV streaming channel on my Rokus for sets w/o a DTA. They stream no-issue. On-demand programming via the TWC TV Roku channel also is no issue.

If I had three teenagers in the house, and was there all the time, I would probably see a need to upgrade. But alas, I don't. So I won't. I get by with StarterTV + Everyday Low Price Internet. Broadcast networks, ESPN, FX, CNN, TNT, and Discovery, along with a second CBS from an alternate NFL Market, are all part of StarterTV in my market. If and when the time comes, I can always upgrade. I do just fine paying just over $40 for TV and internet. And my Amazon Prime / Netflix works, too, to fill in any entertainment gaps.

Cheers!
-Doug


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## MikeekiM (Jun 25, 2002)

The most significant content that keeps me on cable is live sports, specifically local broadcasts of my Golden State Warriors on CSN, and nationally televised games on TNT, TBS and ESPN...


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

MikeekiM said:


> The most significant content that keeps me on cable is live sports, specifically local broadcasts of my Golden State Warriors on CSN, and *nationally televised games on TNT, TBS and ESPN*...


Bolded part, all this available on live channels on both Sling TV and Vue. CSN would be the only one not, but could be on Vue as they have a lot more of the local regional networks, but mostly Fox Sports right now. Sling TV also expanding into Fox Sports channels as well.


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## MikeekiM (Jun 25, 2002)

bonscott87 said:


> Bolded part, all this available on live channels on both Sling TV and Vue. CSN would be the only one not, but could be on Vue as they have a lot more of the local regional networks, but mostly Fox Sports right now. Sling TV also expanding into Fox Sports channels as well.


Good to know... That said, I would say that a majority of the Warrior games are not nationally televised, or locally televised on broadcast (OTA) television... So I guess I am largely keeping cable for CSN.

Seems silly, I know... But when you consider the cost (and logistics hassle factor) of attending these games live, the cost of cable to watch 100% of the games (local or away) is worth it to me.

However, I also have to recognize that I am still paying the promotion price for the double play. My tune may change when I have to start paying regular price for my cable TV package...


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

bonscott87 said:


> Bolded part, all this available on live channels on both Sling TV and Vue. CSN would be the only one not, but could be on Vue as they have a lot more of the local regional networks, but mostly Fox Sports right now. Sling TV also expanding into Fox Sports channels as well.


CSN is in the Philly and Chicago areas for Vue, not sure about other areas. The philly CSN is one of the main reasons I subscribe to Vue.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dstoffa said:


> While I indeed have much faster options easily available, I do not see the need for it. The next higher speed of internet available to me has a rack rate that is more than 3 times what I am paying now. And since this is located in my vacation home, I have no intention of spending much more on it. I am actually very lucky to have CableTV at all....


Oooh, I didn't realize that was your vacation home. But at that point, it's so slow, why bother? If I got on somebody's Wifi and it was that awful, I'd just turn off Wifi and use LTE! One time my friend had 6mbps internet from Comcast because he was too cheap to get the real deal, and it was miserably slow. Heck, anything below about 10mbps isn't even worth bothering with. I can't say I know what I'd do if I was lucky enough to have a vacation home, but I'd probably not get cable or DSL and just use metered LTE.



> To that end, as I have said, I am typically the only user in the home. I can stream Netflix to my 720p HDTV no issue. I can stream Amazon Prime Video to my televisions no issue. I can stream NHLTV to said televisions, no issue. Since TWC went all-digital in my service area, I use the TWC-TV streaming channel on my Rokus for sets w/o a DTA. They stream no-issue. On-demand programming via the TWC TV Roku channel also is no issue.


Not with great quality. Although with a 720p TV, you're going to get the full 1080p or 2160p quality of the programs anyway.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Oooh, I didn't realize that was your vacation home. But at that point, it's so slow, why bother? If I got on somebody's Wifi and it was that awful, I'd just turn off Wifi and use LTE! One time my friend had 6mbps internet from Comcast because he was too cheap to get the real deal, and it was miserably slow. Heck, anything below about 10mbps isn't even worth bothering with. I can't say I know what I'd do if I was lucky enough to have a vacation home, but I'd probably not get cable or DSL and just use metered LTE.


As I have stated before, it works just fine. It is not painfully slow. All my display devices are hard-wired to my router. (Don't ask.. The pipe chase was opened, and I took the oppourtunity to run Cat 5e to every room in the house). I think you'd be surprised at how well it works for me. No pixelation. No hesitation. Maybe I am the only guy on the mountain road using the internet... When it was 2Mbps, it worked just fine. Since TWC dumped analog, they've upped it to 3Mbps. I doubted it myself when I first tried it, but when it worked, and worked well, I said to myself, "Why should I pay more?" Believe me, TWC pushed the big up-sell... I declined, informing them that I could always up the speed later if needed.

There is typically only one "power" device making use of the internet at any given time. I can VPN into my office and work remotely if needed... No issues...

Cell phone service is blocked by two mountains. I'd need to walk down the road to get out of the mountain's shadow. LTE is not an option.

And with regards to owning a vacation home? It was timing and good advice from my old man. When everyone was buying Internet Stocks in the late 90's, I bought property, which was depressed in value at that time. I made a lot of tough choices back then where I passed up instant gratification (new cars, vacations, etc.), but those choices put me on much better footing now.



> Not with great quality. Although with a 720p TV, you're going to get the full 1080p or 2160p quality of the programs anyway.


Again, I am extremely pleased with the performance I have, and I do not believe that any increase in internet speed would result in an increase in my level of enjoyment.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dstoffa said:


> As I have stated before, it works just fine. It is not painfully slow. All my display devices are hard-wired to my router. (Don't ask.. The pipe chase was opened, and I took the oppourtunity to run Cat 5e to every room in the house). I think you'd be surprised at how well it works for me. No pixelation. No hesitation. Maybe I am the only guy on the mountain road using the internet... When it was 2Mbps, it worked just fine. Since TWC dumped analog, they've upped it to 3Mbps. I doubted it myself when I first tried it, but when it worked, and worked well, I said to myself, "Why should I pay more?" Believe me, TWC pushed the big up-sell... I declined, informing them that I could always up the speed later if needed.
> 
> There is typically only one "power" device making use of the internet at any given time. I can VPN into my office and work remotely if needed... No issues...


One device these days can easily use 50+mbps. So you have hardwired ethernet, but are too cheap to get broadband? Insane.



> Cell phone service is blocked by two mountains. I'd need to walk down the road to get out of the mountain's shadow. LTE is not an option.


Hmmmm. You could get broadband from TWC then. If you already have a D3 modem, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.



> And with regards to owning a vacation home? It was timing and good advice from my old man. When everyone was buying Internet Stocks in the late 90's, I bought property, which was depressed in value at that time. I made a lot of tough choices back then where I passed up instant gratification (new cars, vacations, etc.), but those choices put me on much better footing now.
> 
> Again, I am extremely pleased with the performance I have, and I do not believe that any increase in internet speed would result in an increase in my level of enjoyment.


You're nuts. 3mbps is not enough for anyone anywhere. The minimum speed to have broadband, 25/3, is a good measure for the bare minimum. Having 50/10 or better is certainly nice.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

Bigg said:


> One device these days can easily use 50+mbps. So you have hardwired ethernet, but are too cheap to get broadband? Insane.


Yes, one device can use 50+ Mbps these days. Mine do not.

And with regards to hard wired connections, I was willing to spend a couple of days pulling not only cat5e, but cat3 for POTS, RG6, and a dedicated circuit to each of the rooms on the upper floors of my home because:
1. The pipe chase was open
2. I have no problem spending money on a good investment, and putting that wiring in is a good investment
3. If I ever had to do it in the future, I'd have to rip open walls, and that wasn't going to happen.



> Hmmmm. You could get broadband from TWC then. If you already have a D3 modem, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.


I HAVE broadband from TWC, just not to a speed of your liking. As I said, I have their ELP 3Mbps package. And I have a D3 modem, so yes, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.



> You're nuts. 3mbps is not enough for anyone anywhere. The minimum speed to have broadband, 25/3, is a good measure for the bare minimum. Having 50/10 or better is certainly nice.


I think you're nuts. As I have stated many times, the speed I pay for does everything I need it to. If I was not satisfied, or if my service ever becomes too slow for my use, I will upgrade. But for what equipment I have, everything works just fine.

You shouldn't be so quick to judge what people choose to spend their money on.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

For me "moar speed" is overated. Sure I love having 60 from Charter, but I was fine with 12 or even 6 from AT&T. I would often cut down to 6 from Uverse to save money and we could easily stream two Netflix HD streams without any issues. 12 was the "sweet spot" for me in that you could do two HD streams plus have plenty of headroom to play a game or download something.

Granted, don't have a house full of teens either but like I said, two HD streams max with some light web surfing or gaming. Don't need 60 or 100 to do those things effectively.


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

Just joining this thread:

Upgrading a house for networking while the walls are open is generally a good thing. My house was built in 2002 and either the builder or the buyer opted for the whole house networking. While my wife wanted certain things in the house, this was a major buying point for me. Each room has at least 1 phone and one network jack. The Master Bedroom and Upstairs gameroom has phone/tv/network jacks on opposite walls.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

bonscott87 said:


> For me "moar speed" is overated. Sure I love having 60 from Charter, but I was fine with 12 or even 6 from AT&T. I would often cut down to 6 from Uverse to save money and we could easily stream two Netflix HD streams without any issues. 12 was the "sweet spot" for me in that you could do two HD streams plus have plenty of headroom to play a game or download something.
> 
> Granted, don't have a house full of teens either but like I said, two HD streams max with some light web surfing or gaming. Don't need 60 or 100 to do those things effectively.


Pay for what you need, and what works for you... Makes perfect sense...

Cheers!
-Doug


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

cowboys2002 said:


> Upgrading a house for networking while the walls are open is generally a good thing. My house was built in 2002 and either the builder or the buyer opted for the whole house networking. While my wife wanted certain things in the house, this was a major buying point for me. Each room has at least 1 phone and one network jack. The Master Bedroom and Upstairs gameroom has phone/tv/network jacks on opposite walls.


My father called me crazy for pulling six cable bundles (6 power, 6 RG-6, 6 Cat3, 6 Cat5e) from the cellar up three floors to the attic. I told him, "I am never going to have these walls open again (hopefully). This is a small investment for the future."

I tell anyone who is pulling down walls to take the opportunity to hard-wire for the future. You will thank yourself later...


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

cowboys2002 said:


> Just joining this thread:
> 
> Upgrading a house for networking while the walls are open is generally a good thing. My house was built in 2002 and either the builder or the buyer opted for the whole house networking. While my wife wanted certain things in the house, this was a major buying point for me. Each room has at least 1 phone and one network jack. The Master Bedroom and Upstairs gameroom has phone/tv/network jacks on opposite walls.


I put cat5 and land line wire for all rooms in my late 90 home I build, with WiFi and now MoCa I don't use all that wire, my ATT 12 phone remote land line system I am using only needs one phone jack ( don't use all 12 remotes phones but can add if needed) so my conclusion, hard to future proof anything in this changing world.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

lessd said:


> I put cat5 and land line wire for all rooms in my late 90 home I build, with WiFi and now MoCa I don't use all that wire, my ATT 12 phone remote land line system I am using only needs one phone jack ( don't use all 12 remotes phones but can add if needed) so my conclusion, hard to future proof anything in this changing world.


Certainly difficult to future-proof, but had I done nothing, I would only have the rotary phone in the kitchen, and the one TV in the LR, and all internet connectivity would be wireless...

I make use of half the runs I installed.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dstoffa said:


> And with regards to hard wired connections, I was willing to spend a couple of days pulling not only cat5e, but cat3 for POTS, RG6, and a dedicated circuit to each of the rooms on the upper floors of my home because:
> 1. The pipe chase was open
> 2. I have no problem spending money on a good investment, and putting that wiring in is a good investment
> 3. If I ever had to do it in the future, I'd have to rip open walls, and that wasn't going to happen.


Future-proofing your wiring is good. You just need something to connect all that TO.



> I HAVE broadband from TWC, just not to a speed of your liking. As I said, I have their ELP 3Mbps package. And I have a D3 modem, so yes, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.


No you don't. Broadband is 25/3. Anything less than that is not broadband. You can argue about whether broadband should be a bit less or more than 25/3, but it's obviously directionally accurate.



> I think you're nuts. As I have stated many times, the speed I pay for does everything I need it to. If I was not satisfied, or if my service ever becomes too slow for my use, I will upgrade. But for what equipment I have, everything works just fine.


I could see a basic user being OK with 25mbps. But 3mbps? You've got to be crazy. Even places without access to decent DSL or cable are pulling 12mbps off of satellite, and you've got access to probably at least 50mbps, even if you're not in an upgraded market, and if you are, you should have 300mbps.



lessd said:


> I put cat5 and land line wire for all rooms in my late 90 home I build, with WiFi and now MoCa I don't use all that wire, my ATT 12 phone remote land line system I am using only needs one phone jack ( don't use all 12 remotes phones but can add if needed) so my conclusion, hard to future proof anything in this changing world.


I disagree. The standard in the late '90s for a good wiring job was 3x CAT wired as 2 Ethernet and 2 or 4 phone lines, and 2x RG6. Sure, the phone lines are sort of obsolete now, but that CAT-5 cable can run gigabit Ethernet today, and the RG-6 is still good for DirecTV, cable, or OTA. Not sure why you aren't using Ethernet, it is far better than Wifi for computers.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Future-proofing your wiring is good. You just need something to connect all that TO.
> 
> I disagree. The standard in the late '90s for a good wiring job was 3x CAT wired as 2 Ethernet and 2 or 4 phone lines, and 2x RG6. Sure, the phone lines are sort of obsolete now, but that CAT-5 cable can run gigabit Ethernet today, and the RG-6 is still good for DirecTV, cable, or OTA. Not sure why you aren't using Ethernet, it is far better than Wifi for computers.


My main computer is using Ethernet, (my office has the cable modem and router next to my computer, and I do use one Ethernet cable to one Roamio to make the MoCa) the WiFi is for notebooks, HDTV, BD players, etc around the home, the 5G is more that fast enough. I do use the RG6 for MoCa in each room with a TV, all my Minis and Roamios are connected via MoCA, all works well, I don't need any extra land line phone cable or Ethernet connections. So I ended up putting in al lot of Cat5 and phone wire I don't need now, no big $ deal. My point is, it is hard to build a home today (as it was in the late 90s) and know what to do to future proof it as to what wires to run.


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## BeachBill (Mar 29, 2014)

Sixmm said:


> You didn't list any sports. As soon as we can get sports online I am cutting that cord!


ESPN3 is provided by some ISP. It is included in the price. You may want to look at this option.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

Bigg said:


> No you don't. Broadband is 25/3. Anything less than that is not broadband. You can argue about whether broadband should be a bit less or more than 25/3, but it's obviously directionally accurate.


Broadband, yes. But not broadband speed by someone's definition. The infrastructure is in place, and when the time comes that I need it, it's just a phone call away... My modem will support speeds up to 100 Mbps.



> I could see a basic user being OK with 25mbps. But 3mbps? You've got to be crazy. Even places without access to decent DSL or cable are pulling 12mbps off of satellite, and you've got access to probably at least 50mbps, even if you're not in an upgraded market, and if you are, you should have 300mbps.


There will be no FIOS where I am, ever.
Cell service is one bar if there are no clouds.
TWC has just turned off the analog cable, to allow more bandwidth for internet and digital services.

I am not going to pay for speed that I do not need, nor use.
If it bothers you so much, feel free to pay my bill for the speed I do not use. Time Warner Cable will thank you.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

dstoffa said:


> I am not going to pay for speed that I do not need, nor use.
> If it bothers you so much, feel free to pay my bill for the speed I do not use. Time Warner Cable will thank you.


My 60Mbps service is nearly $60, but that's the lowest speed they offer. I'd gladly drop down to 15Mbps for $20 if I had the option. Streaming only takes 6Mbps, so that's all I really need.


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## Socal Tom (Sep 25, 2012)

Bigg said:


> One device these days can easily use 50+mbps. So you have hardwired ethernet, but are too cheap to get broadband? Insane.
> 
> Hmmmm. You could get broadband from TWC then. If you already have a D3 modem, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.
> 
> You're nuts. 3mbps is not enough for anyone anywhere. The minimum speed to have broadband, 25/3, is a good measure for the bare minimum. Having 50/10 or better is certainly nice.


Wow, I'm using 15/1 and it's totally fine for streaming. These are the recommended rates from vudu. 
"VUDU titles are usually available at three quality levels: SD (480p), HD (720p), and HDX (1080p). You need a high-speed Internet connection to use the VUDU service; the company recommends a speed of at least*1 Mbps*for SD,*2.23 Mbps*for HD, and*4.5 Mbps*for HDX."
The 1Mb upload prevents me from streaming outside the house, but otherwise 15Mbps supports at least 2 Tvs and a tablet or two for streaming. 
Tom

Sent from my Lenovo A7600-F using Tapatalk


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

dstoffa said:


> My father called me crazy for pulling six cable bundles (6 power, 6 RG-6, 6 Cat3, 6 Cat5e) from the cellar up three floors to the attic. I told him, "I am never going to have these walls open again (hopefully). This is a small investment for the future."
> 
> I tell anyone who is pulling down walls to take the opportunity to hard-wire for the future. You will thank yourself later...


The only thing crazy was running six Cat3. It should have been twelve Cat5e instead since anything you run on Cat3 you can run on Cat5e.

For clients at work we typically only run Cat6 now. (Rarely Cat5e any more) That way the cables can be used for anything the client needs. Whether it's phone, data, or HDMI extenders. And can be repurposed for a different use.

With Cat3 you limit yourself for what the cable can be used with since it's specs are so low.


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## dstoffa (Dec 14, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> The only thing crazy was running six Cat3. It should have been twelve Cat5e instead since anything you run on Cat3 you can run on Cat5e.
> 
> For clients at work we typically only run Cat6 now. (Rarely Cat5e any more) That way the cables can be used for anything the client needs. Whether it's phone, data, or HDMI extenders. And can be repurposed for a different use.
> 
> With Cat3 you limit yourself for what the cable can be used with since it's specs are so low.


Hind sight is 20-20, but I had a spool of it, so I pulled it. If I didn't have the spool of cat3, I would have pulled two cat5e runs to each room. The cat3 was for POTS.

With at least one cat5e run to each room, I can make do.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

dstoffa said:


> I HAVE broadband from TWC, just not to a speed of your liking. As I said, I have their ELP 3Mbps package. And I have a D3 modem, so yes, it would literally be a phone call to upgrade.
> 
> I think you're nuts. As I have stated many times, the speed I pay for does everything I need it to. If I was not satisfied, or if my service ever becomes too slow for my use, I will upgrade. But for what equipment I have, everything works just fine.
> 
> You shouldn't be so quick to judge what people choose to spend their money on.


You literally don't have broadband. Broadband in the US is 25/3.

Nothing works "just fine" with 2mbps of bandwidth.



lessd said:


> My main computer is using Ethernet, (my office has the cable modem and router next to my computer, and I do use one Ethernet cable to one Roamio to make the MoCa) the WiFi is for notebooks, HDTV, BD players, etc around the home, the 5G is more that fast enough. I do use the RG6 for MoCa in each room with a TV, all my Minis and Roamios are connected via MoCA, all works well, I don't need any extra land line phone cable or Ethernet connections. So I ended up putting in al lot of Cat5 and phone wire I don't need now, no big $ deal. My point is, it is hard to build a home today (as it was in the late 90s) and know what to do to future proof it as to what wires to run.


It's hard to know exactly what technologies we will be using, but look at the installed base, it's CAT-5e/6 and RG-6. That's what future technologies and services will use, because that's what people have. So a pair of each home run to a central point is a pretty good start for wiring.

In your case, you've chosen to use wireless, but if you run across devices that don't have wireless connections, you're ready to go with Ethernet available.



dstoffa said:


> There will be no FIOS where I am, ever.
> Cell service is one bar if there are no clouds.
> TWC has just turned off the analog cable, to allow more bandwidth for internet and digital services.


Who cares if there is FIOS. Even before the upgrades, I believe TWC can deliver at least 50mbps. After, they do 300mbps.



Socal Tom said:


> Wow, I'm using 15/1 and it's totally fine for streaming. These are the recommended rates from vudu.


Yeah, that's fine for 1080p. Once you get into 2160p streaming, you need 25mbps, although the streams themselves are like 16mbps I think. Once HDR gets cranked up, it will probably be more like 20-25mbps actual speed, needing at least 30-35mbps.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

^^^ All really good reasons that OTT will not work as a mainstream solution for a *very* long time.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

wizwor said:


> ^^^ All really good reasons that OTT will not work as a mainstream solution for a *very* long time.


I'm not sure how you're defining "mainstream" but there are already millions of Americans who rely purely on OTT (or a combo of OTT and OTA) for all their video entertainment, me included. And it works great. I have 25/5 Comcast internet and I don't think I've had one instance this year of video buffer pausing or failure to stream when watching on my TV-connected devices (TiVo, Apple TV). (OK, I have had problems with the janky Hulu app on my TiVo but that's bad software, not any fault inherent to OTT transmission.) Frankly, I don't have that success rate with OTA TV (thanks to occasional antenna interference/video break-ups). And I never had that success rate with either DISH or DirecTV either.

<shrug>


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not sure how you're defining "mainstream" but there are already millions of Americans who rely purely on OTT (or a combo of OTT and OTA) for all their video entertainment, me included. And it works great. I have 25/5 Comcast internet and I don't think I've had one instance this year of video buffer pausing or failure to stream when watching on my TV-connected devices (TiVo, Apple TV). (OK, I have had problems with the janky Hulu app on my TiVo but that's bad software, not any fault inherent to OTT transmission.) Frankly, I don't have that success rate with OTA TV (thanks to occasional antenna interference/video break-ups). And I never had that success rate with either DISH or DirecTV either.
> 
> <shrug>


Millions?


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## Socal Tom (Sep 25, 2012)

Maybe I'm too old for. This conversation, you do realize OTA existed before cable? It's not like antennas and broadcasting over the air are new things. Millions sounds about right to me. I did a quick search., 7% of us households watch OTA, 319 million people in the US, so that is 22 million people. 
Tom
Sent from my Lenovo A7600-F using Tapatalk


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

smark said:


> Millions?


Netflix alone has 47 million subscribers in the USA (and many of those subs represent families). Now, I'm sure a majority of Netflix subs also subscribe to cable or satellite pay TV but I'd bet there are at least a few million who don't. (A 2013 study found that 83% of US households subscribed to traditional pay TV, although that was down from 88% in 2010. Don't know where we are now.)

https://www.cta.tech/News/News-Rele...-Percent-of-TV-Households-Rely-on-Over-t.aspx


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

NashGuy said:


> I'm not sure how you're defining "mainstream" but there are already millions of Americans who rely purely on OTT (or a combo of OTT and OTA) for all their video entertainment, me included.


Yeah, OTT SVOD works fine on a 25mbps connection with a couple of users at 1080p, or one user at 4k. The households that have 4k right now also have 100mbps+ internet connections, so bandwidth isn't a big deal there either.



NashGuy said:


> Netflix alone has 47 million subscribers in the USA (and many of those subs represent families). Now, I'm sure a majority of Netflix subs also subscribe to cable or satellite pay TV but I'd bet there are at least a few million who don't. (A 2013 study found that 83% of US households subscribed to traditional pay TV, although that was down from 88% in 2010. Don't know where we are now.)


Yeah, Netflix is always hailed as this big "cord cutter" thing, when in reality, it's more like HBO- it's a network that's generating it's own content, that's in addition to a cable package. There are some people, like my gf, who don't care much about TV, and just have Netflix, but there are a lot of people who do care a lot about TV, like myself, and have Netflix on top of a cable subscription. With a handful of remotes, I have HBO, Showtime (which I literally never watch, it was a freebie from Comcast), Netflix, Amazon Prime, as well as PPV through Comcast, Amazon, and Vudu.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

I would guesstimate that at least 12 million of those 47 million US Netflix subscribers do not subscribe to traditional pay TV. (One survey of 800 Netflix subscribers last year found that 1/3 no longer had pay TV, so that would equal over 15 million.) So yeah, you're sort of right. For most people who have Netflix, it's essentially an a la carte premium add-on, like HBO or Showtime, except that they're not billed for it by their cable/satellite/fiber TV provider and they probably can't access it on the same STB they use for their main pay TV service. But there's still a big chunk of their business for whom that's not true; for those folks, like me, Netflix is a more central part of their TV diet. And, of course, while HBO and Showtime also have standalone streaming options, those subscribers currently comprise a far smaller percentage of their total subscribers than is the case with Netflix (or Hulu or Amazon Prime, I would presume).


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

Keep in mind though there are a lot of people who use someone else's username to watch TV Everywhere as well. Very few get by on just Netflix alone without some other service/OTA.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

smark said:


> Keep in mind though there are a lot of people who use someone else's username to watch TV Everywhere as well. Very few get by on just Netflix alone without some other service/OTA.


Many do. The whole "cord cutting" thing is really a misnomer. Cord cutting is for people who don't watch much TV in the first place. I know a lot of people that just aren't interested in it.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

This whole discussion is pointless. If one does not watch enough tv, then there is no need for cable. If one watches lots of tv, especially live sports, then cable is needed. As easy as that. We all have our priorities and where we prefer to spend our (limited) budget. I personally need cable, and will pay for it (in addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime)


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

thyname said:


> This whole discussion is pointless. If one does not watch enough tv, then there is no need for cable. If one watches lots of tv, especially live sports, then cable is needed. As easy as that. We all have our priorities and where we prefer to spend our (limited) budget. I personally need cable, and will pay for it (in addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime)
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


mlb.com and nfl game pass cover all my sports needs.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

thyname said:


> This whole discussion is pointless. If one does not watch enough tv, then there is no need for cable. If one watches lots of tv, especially live sports, then cable is needed. As easy as that. We all have our priorities and where we prefer to spend our (limited) budget. I personally need cable, and will pay for it (in addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime)
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Most of our discussions on here are probably fairly pointless. 

I wouldn't say that I watch any less TV now with OTA + streaming than I did when I had satellite. As far as what set-up is best for a given person, I tend to think that it's more about what content you watch and what devices/user interfaces you're comfortable using to access that content than it is about how many hours you spend watching. That said, the more hours a household spends watching TV, the more they likely value it, and therefore the more they may be willing to pay for TV services.


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## MikeekiM (Jun 25, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> mlb.com and nfl game pass cover all my sports needs.


Do these really meet your needs?

I was going to try and subscribe to NBA League Pass in order to cut the cord, but found out that the subscription is really only valuable to those that are complete basketball nuts, and want to watch games nationwide in addition to the local games on local broadcast... The local stuff is blacked out on NBA League Pass, so even if I subscribed, I would still need cable to get to the local games on CSN...


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## HarperVision (May 14, 2007)

You could always use a VPN or DNS service.


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## smark (Nov 20, 2002)

HarperVision said:


> You could always use a VPN or DNS service.


That's the rub. There are many ways to do things incrementally cheaper but most of the time you end up with incrementally more difficult ways to watch items.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

thyname said:


> This whole discussion is pointless. If one does not watch enough tv, then there is no need for cable. If one watches lots of tv, especially live sports, then cable is needed. As easy as that. We all have our priorities and where we prefer to spend our (limited) budget. I personally need cable, and will pay for it (in addition to Netflix and Amazon Prime)


Well, that's exactly my point. "cord cutting" doesn't have some magic replacement for cable, it is simply a right-sizing of the market. A lot of people who don't watch much TV are fine with OTA, Netflix, or nothing. Maybe $30/mo was fine 20 years ago to get good reception on local channels, and a handful of cable channels, but now with digital OTA, and other options for casual content consumption, they don't want to pay $70/mo for cable. But people who want cable, want cable.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

Bigg said:


> Well, that's exactly my point. "cord cutting" doesn't have some magic replacement for cable, it is simply a right-sizing of the market. A lot of people who don't watch much TV are fine with OTA, Netflix, or nothing. Maybe $30/mo was fine 20 years ago to get good reception on local channels, and a handful of cable channels, but now with digital OTA, and other options for casual content consumption, they don't want to pay $70/mo for cable. But people who want cable, want cable.


Exactly!

Here are my thoughts: once more and more people cut the cord and streaming becomes mainstream, cable companies, who are often the same companies offering internet service, will make up the loss on TV by jacking up the price of the Internet, and they can achieve this via different means (throttling, tiered service, straight raising prices, and so on). On the other hand, content providers will charge more to streaming services to also make up from lost revenue coming from cable providers, at which point, the streaming services will pass on the added cost to consumers. The end result is the same for us, the consumers. We'll end up paying the same as before with traditional cable subscription. It is going to be a slow process, but very likely. These companies are not charities, and will not allow becoming "pipes" providers. Just my two cents...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

thyname said:


> Exactly!
> 
> Here are my thoughts: once more and more people cut the cord and streaming becomes mainstream, cable companies, who are often the same companies offering internet service, will make up the loss on TV by jacking up the price of the Internet, and they can achieve this via different means (throttling, tiered service, straight raising prices, and so on). On the other hand, content providers will charge more to streaming services to also make up from lost revenue coming from cable providers, at which point, the streaming services will pass on the added cost to consumers. The end result is the same for us, the consumers. We'll end up paying the same as before with traditional cable subscription. It is going to be a slow process, but very likely. These companies are not charities, and will not allow becoming "pipes" providers. Just my two cents...


Hah! They eventually will? They already have! Unbundled internet from Comcast costs way more than bundled. They realize that they have competition both on the video side, both from direct competition from DirecTV, and from competition from other media sources for people's eyeball time from Netflix and others, but that in many cases, they have a total monopoly on broadband access.

Many small providers have sort of given up on TV, as it's not profitable for them with the carriage fees they are paying. Our local overbuilder is pretty much not investing in their archaic TV service, and just pushing unbundled broadband, as the margins are so much higher.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

Bigg said:


> Hah! They eventually will? They already have! Unbundled internet from Comcast costs way more than bundled. They realize that they have competition both on the video side, both from direct competition from DirecTV, and from competition from other media sources for people's eyeball time from Netflix and others, but that in many cases, they have a total monopoly on broadband access.
> 
> Many small providers have sort of given up on TV, as it's not profitable for them with the carriage fees they are paying. Our local overbuilder is pretty much not investing in their archaic TV service, and just pushing unbundled broadband, as the margins are so much higher.


I agree with you. What I outlined is happening, but, it will happen in a more dramatic fashion in the future, as "cord cutting" is becoming a trend and even fashionable. I have heard many people actually bragging about it.

When I signed up for Verizon FIOS last month, I just wanted Internet and phone. It was cheaper to have tv as well as part of their triple play. So I now have tv from both Directv (which I am not going to give up) and Verizon. Go figure...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

thyname said:


> I agree with you. What I outlined is happening, but, it will happen in a more dramatic fashion in the future, as "cord cutting" is becoming a trend and even fashionable. I have heard many people actually bragging about it.
> 
> When I signed up for Verizon FIOS last month, I just wanted Internet and phone. It was cheaper to have tv as well as part of their triple play. So I now have tv from both Directv (which I am not going to give up) and Verizon. Go figure...


Yeah, I think this will continue for a while. I'm not sure when the programming costs will go up enough for even the big guys to push unbundled more. They are obviously trying to lure you in after a year, since their costs to provide TV and internet are way higher than just internet.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

Most of the discounts are for two years. Contract is also for two years. The only discount dropping after the first year is$15 per month.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## tenthplanet (Mar 5, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Well, that's exactly my point. "cord cutting" doesn't have some magic replacement for cable, it is simply a right-sizing of the market. A lot of people who don't watch much TV are fine with OTA, Netflix, or nothing. Maybe $30/mo was fine 20 years ago to get good reception on local channels, and a handful of cable channels, but now with digital OTA, and other options for casual content consumption, they don't want to pay $70/mo for cable. But people who want cable, want cable.


 There is no one type of cord cutter, just like there is no one type of cable or satellite viewer. You would never know this by what you see on the internet, but talk to real people sometime and you will find diversity.


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## wgameplaya (May 5, 2016)

thyname said:


> I agree with you. What I outlined is happening, but, it will happen in a more dramatic fashion in the future, as "cord cutting" is becoming a trend and even fashionable. I have heard many people actually bragging about it.
> 
> When I signed up for Verizon FIOS last month, I just wanted Internet and phone. It was cheaper to have tv as well as part of their triple play. So I now have tv from both Directv (which I am not going to give up) and Verizon. Go figure...
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


cord cutting is def a point of pride. it's like liberation. I cut my cable bill from 140 to 65- that made me a lot more happy than just the 75 bucks in savings.

When the year contract is up- im fairly sure they'll be options with hulu or others that let me take it down a bit more with no cable at all. im guessing that 65 drops to about 50.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

tenthplanet said:


> There is no one type of cord cutter, just like there is no one type of cable or satellite viewer. You would never know this by what you see on the internet, but talk to real people sometime and you will find diversity.


Sure. Some watch a little OTA. And there are the few extreme users who watch a ton of OTA, but they are highly atypical. The point is, you *cannot* replace pay tv with anything else. Can't be done. The people who are cord cutting are willing to watch different content, or aren't that interested in it in the first place. The people who want the content on cable have to pay for it.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Bigg said:


> Sure. Some watch a little OTA. And there are the few extreme users who watch a ton of OTA, but they are highly atypical. The point is, you *cannot* replace pay tv with anything else. Can't be done. The people who are cord cutting are willing to watch different content, or aren't that interested in it in the first place. The people who want the content on cable have to pay for it.


Ah! we agree, Comcast in my CT area is offering very inexpensive cable packages that leave out stations like CNN FOX news etc. one can save over $60/month doing that, but when one save money on channels you can get, you have a loss of content delivered in a convent way.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Bigg said:


> you *cannot* replace pay tv with anything else. Can't be done. The people who are cord cutting are willing to watch different content, or aren't that interested in it in the first place.


Or are smart enough to have analyzed the content they really like and watch (and I don't know where you get that they're all "not that interested in the first place") and found they can get that without a cable TV subscription.

Why is there so much accusation and hostility here towards the cord cutters? Like it's the new "un-American."


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Wil said:


> Or are smart enough to have analyzed the content they really like and watch (and I don't know where you get that they're all "not that interested in the first place") and found they can get that without a cable TV subscription.
> 
> Why is there so much accusation and hostility here towards the cord cutters? Like it's the new "un-American."


Near the beginning of this thread I posted: 


atmuscarella said:


> Guess I will add my 2 cents. We are in a period where many people have lots of choices when it comes to "TV". The first thing people should embrace is there is no need for a one solution must fit all mentality. Or don't worry about what other people think is the best solution worry about what works best for you at this moment in time (and understand it may change).
> 
> Every household as limitations based on their physical location. So depending on where one lives, you may not be able to receive OTA TV well, may not have cable available (or cable available from a preferred provider), may not have high speed Internet available, or may not be able to get Satellite service. So someone else's perfect solution may not even work where you live.
> 
> ...


We all pay for access to the content we want.

I personally pay for watching movies at the movie theater, access to Amazon Prime, Red Box rentals, purchase or rental of digital movies, & movies on Blu-ray. I also use my TiVos to watch content broadcast OTA and watch stuff via YouTube and some other free web sites. All of the above provide me with more than enough video to watch for the amount of time I want to watch video. But I don't happen to be currently paying for a traditional Pay TV service. So I guess I am technically a cord cutter.

Why anyone cares what content I or anyone else decides they want to pay for or watch is beyond me. This thread has beat the topic to death but nothing has changed: When it comes to accessing video content people should do what works for themselves and not worry about what someone else is doing.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Near the beginning of this thread I posted:
> 
> We all pay for access to the content we want.
> 
> ...


It seems like cord cutting is becoming a religion, with people saying come to my way of thinking.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

lessd said:


> It seems like cord cutting is becoming a religion, with people saying come to my way of thinking.


This is the nature of our society. People validate their opinions by convincing others to embrace them. ("Wow! You're right. This _is_ the best way. Thank you for enlightening me. You are awesome!") Hence the term 'fanboy'. TiVo owners do a lot of this. Roku owners too. I see less of this among OTA'ers than among OTT'ers. (Probably because OTA'ers don't have internet access.)

I'm happy to help with cord cutting, but I don't want to 'own' someone's dissatisfaction.


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## Eddie501 (Jun 4, 2004)

Bigg said:


> Sure. Some watch a little OTA. And there are the few extreme users who watch a ton of OTA, but they are highly atypical. The point is, you *cannot* replace pay tv with anything else. Can't be done. The people who are cord cutting are willing to watch different content, or aren't that interested in it in the first place. The people who want the content on cable have to pay for it.


Yes, but they no longer have to pay the cable companies for it. I'm not even sure if I would call myself a cord cutter. I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but I still watch all the same content as when I did. Locals via OTA, plus HBO Now & Showtime streaming. And I'll pick up season of the handful of must -see basic cable shows ala carte via Vudu or iTunes.

So basically I have just switched from one form of pay TV to another. Although a much more flexible & inexpensive one. Basically, streaming is the version of cable that I always wanted, but cable companies would never give me. When I cancelled I said look, I'll stay on but all I want is locals & premiums. I will subscribe to every premium channel you have if you can give me this. But nope, gotta have a $60 base package full of trash & commercials to even be allowed to get to the premiums. The another $20 for equip & fees on top of that.

So I still get what I want, without all garbage. The other uptick is that I've discovered that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu all have great original programming that I would have missed when my entire TV budget was paying for stuff I didn't want.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Eddie501 said:


> Yes, but they no longer have to pay the cable companies for it. I'm not even sure if I would call myself a cord cutter. I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but I still watch all the same content as when I did. Locals via OTA, plus HBO Now & Showtime streaming. And I'll pick up season of the handful of must -see basic cable shows ala carte via Vudu or iTunes.
> 
> So basically I have just switched from one form of pay TV to another. Although a much more flexible & inexpensive one. Basically, streaming is the version of cable that I always wanted, but cable companies would never give me. When I cancelled I said look, I'll stay on but all I want is locals & premiums. I will subscribe to every premium channel you have if you can give me this. But nope, gotta have a $60 base package full of trash & commercials to even be allowed to get to the premiums. The another $20 for equip & fees on top of that.
> 
> So I still get what I want, without all garbage. The other uptick is that I've discovered that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu all have great original programming that I would have missed when my entire TV budget was paying for stuff I didn't want.


Certainly not very convenient to have to bounce around like that. I also am not a fan of any television show providers. The hacked up way they inject the commercials and always the same commercial?


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## Eddie501 (Jun 4, 2004)

bradleys said:


> Certainly not very convenient to have to bounce around like that. I also am not a fan of any television show providers. The hacked up way they inject the commercials and always the same commercial?


That's the beauty of my Roamio OTA, they're all on one device (except HBO Now). Setting up a season pass for example, for Walking Dead purchased from Vudu, is pretty much the same process as setting a One Pass from AMC if you have cable. It just shows up in My Shows, hit play and watch. You just have to wait a day to get current episodes.

And now that Hulu offers a commercial free option, none of my streaming services have any commercials at all. Commercials were one of the primary reasons I ditched cable & I will not subscribe to a service that has them. Fool me into paying for ads once, not again. Not only that, but streaming is also free of the logos, promos, hashtags, etc that clutter basic cable programming.

Not trying to convince anyone, I'm just saying you can still pretty much enjoy most of the content of traditional pay TV without a cable/satellite subscription. And I find it a much more enjoyable experience.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Eddie501 said:


> Not trying to convince anyone, I'm just saying you can still pretty much enjoy most of the content of traditional pay TV without a cable/satellite subscription. And I find it a much more enjoyable experience.


Your family is different than mine, and for that matter I don't want to go all over trying to watch what I want, I will pay more to have TiVo *my shows *have all the stuff I have yet to watch in one place. I even find it a pain to watch_ Bill Maher overtime _on You Tube, it would much easer (for me) if HBO just added an extra 10 minutes to the show.


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## javabird (Oct 13, 2006)

Eddie501 said:


> That's the beauty of my Roamio OTA, they're all on one device (except HBO Now). Not only that, but streaming is also free of the logos, promos, hashtags, etc that clutter basic cable programming.
> 
> Not trying to convince anyone, I'm just saying you can still pretty much enjoy most of the content of traditional pay TV without a cable/satellite subscription. And I find it a much more enjoyable experience.


Good arguments. Even though I currently subscribe to cable TV, I'm getting so annoyed with all the garbage graphics that popup during my shows. I feel like I'm not really getting what I'm paying for.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lessd said:


> Ah! we agree, Comcast in my CT area is offering very inexpensive cable packages that leave out stations like CNN FOX news etc. one can save over $60/month doing that, but when one save money on channels you can get, you have a loss of content delivered in a convent way.


You're talking about skinny bundles? That wasn't my point, as people who want cable content want a full blown cable package. But skinny bundles have their place. While Comcast's forced bundling is despicable, if a provider offers skinny bundles AND reasonably priced internet only, I think skinny bundles are a good option. People can pay a small fee for local channels, and have the ability to add a DVR or HBO and not have to worry about setting an antenna up.



Wil said:


> Or are smart enough to have analyzed the content they really like and watch (and I don't know where you get that they're all "not that interested in the first place") and found they can get that without a cable TV subscription.
> 
> Why is there so much accusation and hostility here towards the cord cutters? Like it's the new "un-American."


No. The people who want cable content need cable. The people who are cord cutting don't watch it, or are willing to give it up. The thing is, for people who don't watch sports, there's not much left on cable channels.



Eddie501 said:


> Yes, but they no longer have to pay the cable companies for it. I'm not even sure if I would call myself a cord cutter. I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but I still watch all the same content as when I did. Locals via OTA, plus HBO Now & Showtime streaming. And I'll pick up season of the handful of must -see basic cable shows ala carte via Vudu or iTunes.


The thing is, you didn't watch cable channel content in the first place if you're good with that type of solution. If you watch cable channel content, i.e. sports, then you need actual cable. You're an example of right-sizing- not paying for something you didn't really need in the first place. My point is that if people do watch the content on cable channels, there is no substitution for that content delivered via pay TV. It's just that a lot of people have other interests in TV, or other ways to spend their time. Choice is good, as long as we don't pretend that we can directly replace cable with something else. You've also shown why skinny bundles make sense. While you're doing it on your own, a lot of people would just do a skinny bundle with locals, HBO, and internet all lumped together.



> So basically I have just switched from one form of pay TV to another. Although a much more flexible & inexpensive one. Basically, streaming is the version of cable that I always wanted, but cable companies would never give me. When I cancelled I said look, I'll stay on but all I want is locals & premiums. I will subscribe to every premium channel you have if you can give me this. But nope, gotta have a $60 base package full of trash & commercials to even be allowed to get to the premiums. The another $20 for equip & fees on top of that.


No. Not at all. It's not cable at all, because you're just doing locals and premiums, not the cable channels.

That's what skinny bundles are for. Not sure who your cable provider is, but most of them have variations on the locals+HBO or locals+Showtime bundles now, often with fast internet packages.



> So I still get what I want, without all garbage. The other uptick is that I've discovered that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu all have great original programming that I would have missed when my entire TV budget was paying for stuff I didn't want.


Agreed. I find myself watching mostly HBO, Netflix, and Amazon, and relatively little actual cable, even though I have a Comcast bundle to support my sports and politics habits.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Bigg said:


> people who want cable content need cable


Not when they can get it elsewhere. I don't follow much of what you're saying; it's like there are some words that you have established your own proprietary meaning for.

People are looking at the content of their cable TV. They're deciding that the subset of what they want of that cable content is available elsewhere and they are cancelling their cable TV subscriptions. It's not all that complicated.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Wil said:


> Not when they can get it elsewhere. I don't follow much of what you're saying; it's like there are some words that you have established your own proprietary meaning for.
> 
> People are looking at the content of their cable TV. They're deciding that the subset of what they want of that cable content is available elsewhere and they are cancelling their cable TV subscriptions. It's not all that complicated.


If you want new broadcast shows the first day, then you need cable, you may be able to get most new shows the next day or week, for some that is OK, for sports that a bummer. IE: I like *The Americans *on FX, I don't know when the new season will start in the fall, or if the series is canceled, I don't care because when/if the new season starts it will show up on my TiVo, every few years I clear up my canceled shows on the TiVos One-Pass, having extra entries does not cause any TiVo problems.


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## wizwor (Dec 18, 2013)

lessd said:


> If you want new broadcast shows the first day, then you need cable _or an antenna_


Fixed that for you.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

lessd said:


> If you want new broadcast shows the first day, then you need cable


I just don't know what to say. I've tried. I'm done.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

PS Vue has 95% of what's on cable, including lots of sports, all live and on demand.

The world has changed since you last left your house lessd.

Here are all the live channels you get:

http://api.viglink.com/api/click?fo...g to know about Sony’s cable alternative&txt=

Looks a heck of a lot like typical cable or satellite TV packages to me.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

Yep. Don't need actual "cable" to get cable shows. Sling TV, PS Vue, Charter Stream, etc. can get you many "cable" shows on the cheap. I haven't had actual cable for many years outside of a 6 month period with Charter when I switched to their Internet, and their DVR was sooooo bad that I dropped it despite still being in the first year deal.

Last night was a good example of what I watched without cable. I wasn't feeling well so went to watch TV. Fired up Charter Stream on the Roku (it's Charter's version of Sling or Vue) and just surfed between HGTV and Food live. I like Love it or List it, shoot me.  Wife came down so we watched the finale of Legends of Tomorrow on Hulu (it's much better quality then my local CW via OTA). Had a credit on Vudu so rented a 1080p movie there and then choose a movie between HBO Go and Epix app. Went with one on Epix.

All that and we never left the Roku "verse". Heck, I barely even use the Tivo anymore, just for CBS.

Charter heads up! You get free and full access to the Epix TV Anywhere app just by having their Internet service. No need for cable TV at all to authenticate.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

Speaking of Charter Stream, I dumped Sling TV for it. Pretty much the same channels but I get HBO (or Showtime) included in the $20 monthly and I can authenticate on TV Anywhere apps with my Charter login, unlike Sling which only worked on ESPN. As soon as Vue is available on Roku I will give it a spin as well.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I honestly don't need a Tivo for anything OTA, I can do it all easily streaming via services I already pay for.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Eddie501 said:


> That's the beauty of my Roamio OTA, they're all on one device (except HBO Now). Setting up a season pass for example, for Walking Dead purchased from Vudu, is pretty much the same process as setting a One Pass from AMC if you have cable. It just shows up in My Shows, hit play and watch. You just have to wait a day to get current episodes.
> 
> And now that Hulu offers a commercial free option, none of my streaming services have any commercials at all. Commercials were one of the primary reasons I ditched cable & I will not subscribe to a service that has them. Fool me into paying for ads once, not again. Not only that, but streaming is also free of the logos, promos, hashtags, etc that clutter basic cable programming.
> 
> Not trying to convince anyone, I'm just saying you can still pretty much enjoy most of the content of traditional pay TV without a cable/satellite subscription. And I find it a much more enjoyable experience.


You don't see logos on Hulu?


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Eddie501 said:


> So I still get what I want, without all garbage. The other uptick is that I've discovered that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu all have great original programming that I would have missed when my entire TV budget was paying for stuff I didn't want.


LOL, including unskippable commercials on Hulu which I would call 'garbage'. Oh yeah, you have to pay more to get rid of that. No thanks.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Yep. Don't need actual "cable" to get cable shows. Sling TV, PS Vue, Charter Stream, etc. can get you many "cable" shows on the cheap. I haven't had actual cable for many years outside of a 6 month period with Charter when I switched to their Internet, and their DVR was sooooo bad that I dropped it despite still being in the first year deal.


The thing is, with cable bundles it all works out to be the same or even less cost. I've said it before - I'm paying $100/mo. for 75mb HSI + all cable channels + HBO on Comcast. With no other costs because I'm using a single Roamio + Minis.

If I paid just for internet + all of these streaming services to get what I watch on cable (including the sports I watch) it would cost me MORE money, even without the sports streaming. And I wouldn't get first-run stuff when it airs (with SkipMode now), and I'd constantly have to use slower apps instead of just hitting play from Now Playing.

I'm trying to figure out how this is a good thing. I get that streaming can be a good substitute for some, but it is not guaranteed to save money nor is it a full replacement for a cable sub.


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## thyname (Dec 27, 2010)

slowbiscuit said:


> The thing is, with cable bundles it all works out to be the same or even less cost. I've said it before - I'm paying $100/mo. for 75mb HSI + all cable channels + HBO on Comcast. With no other costs because I'm using a single Roamio + Minis.
> 
> If I paid just for internet + all of these streaming services to get what I watch on cable (including the sports I watch) it would cost me MORE money, even without the sports streaming. And I wouldn't get first-run stuff when it airs (with SkipMode now), and I'd constantly have to use slower apps instead of just hitting play from Now Playing.
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how this is a good thing. I get that streaming can be a good substitute for some, but it is not guaranteed to save money nor is it a full replacement for a cable sub.


Great post! 100% agree!

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

Wil said:


> Not when they can get it elsewhere. I don't follow much of what you're saying; it's like there are some words that you have established your own proprietary meaning for.
> 
> People are looking at the content of their cable TV. They're deciding that the subset of what they want of that cable content is available elsewhere and they are cancelling their cable TV subscriptions. It's not all that complicated.


I think I'm pretty clear in what I'm saying. The people who want content from cable channels are going to subscribe to cable (in this context it means pay TV and includes DBS, IPTV, and QAM-based TelcoTV).

There are a lot of people who just want locals and premiums, and are no longer interested in cable channels, which are primarily sports at this point. They can go OTT SVOD now with HBO Now plus an OTA antenna, or they can skinny bundle. And that largely depends on the bundle and standalone broadband options offered by their ISP. I watch a little off of cable channels, but enough off of locals and premiums plus I want super fast internet that a fat bundle plus HBO makes sense for me.



slowbiscuit said:


> If I paid just for internet + all of these streaming services to get what I watch on cable (including the sports I watch) it would cost me MORE money, even without the sports streaming. And I wouldn't get first-run stuff when it airs (with SkipMode now), and I'd constantly have to use slower apps instead of just hitting play from Now Playing.
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how this is a good thing. I get that streaming can be a good substitute for some, but it is not guaranteed to save money nor is it a full replacement for a cable sub.


Exactly. Comcast and Verizon are two of the biggest offenders, but others are catching on. They make the bundles such that it's cheaper to just keep their TV. Skinny bundles are especially attractive when they cost about the same as just internet and they include basic cable plus HBO or Showtime.

Even if they weren't doing forced bundling for internet, when you start adding up SlingTV and Hulu and HBO Now, you may as well just bundle. I don't count Amazon and Netflix, since Amazon is basically for the shipping, the video is a freebie in my book, and Netflix is like HBO as a network, many people who have it are using it in addition to cable, not instead of.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

My cable channels are not primarily sports. I subscribe to cable because it is so inexpensive. I have never paid so little for so many HD channels. It only runs me $70 a month as part of a bundle on Fios.For me to watch the same content(again non sports) without cable, it would cost me at least 50% more.

Fifteen years ago I paid $120 a month to DirecTV for only a few HD. channels. And only one premium channel. Now I have over 160 HD channels and most of the premium channels. All for only $70 a month on FiOS. For what you get TV has never been so inexpensive for me over the last 30+ years. And just based on cost, going streaming only would take me way backwards since it would cost so much.


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## schatham (Mar 17, 2007)

aaronwt said:


> I subscribe to cable because it is so inexpensive. I have never paid so little for so many HD channels. It only runs me $70 a month as part of a bundle on Fios.For me to watch the same content(again non sports) without cable, it would cost me at least 50% more.
> 
> .


This is what I've said here on the forums also. I pay $4 for cable tv with showtime over having stand alone internet. It would cost a lot more to cut the cord. I'm on my last month of sling tv and won't be renewing because cable costs me less.

The only way to beat them is going over the air, no internet or very cheap good internet. This may come over time if we get some DE-regulation of the cable companies.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

schatham said:


> This [good] may come over time if we get some DE-regulation of the cable companies.


RE-regulation?


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

aaronwt said:


> You don't see logos on Hulu?


On most stuff other than movies and Hulu original series, you see a smallish semi-transparent non-animated logo for the TV network on which the show originates, e.g. while watching Angie Tribeca, you see the TBS logo at the bottom right corner of the screen. It's no worse, and in some cases better, than the logos you would see if watching the same show on linear TV.

But the bigger deal, to me, is that you don't have any other crap painted all over the bottom 25% of your screen during a show on Hulu like you do on network and basic cable shows. No annoying pop-up animated ad banners for upcoming shows. No severe weather alerts with full-color motion radar. No news crawlers, school closings or election returns. TiVo may have SkipMode (a great feature indeed) but there's no DVR on earth that can excise all that junk from your recordings.



slowbiscuit said:


> LOL, including unskippable commercials on Hulu which I would call 'garbage'. Oh yeah, you have to pay more to get rid of that. No thanks.


Yeah, if you really dislike ads, just pay an extra $4 and you don't have any. Which, frankly, is better than having to FF past ads during a DVR recording. TiVo's SkipMode is great (when it's available) -- just click once to leap over the whole ad break. But you know what's even better? No having the ads there in the first place. I have ad-free Hulu right now and I find myself watching recordings from my Roamio OTA a lot less.

And if you don't want to pay the extra $4 to avoid ads (most Hulu subscribers don't), at least Hulu subjects you to fewer minutes of ads per show than linear broadcasters do for those shows. I know a lot of TiVo users can't stand ads but I'd wager that US viewers are more interested in time-shifting, i.e. watching what they want when they want, than in ad-avoidance.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

Eddie501 said:


> Yes, but they no longer have to pay the cable companies for it. I'm not even sure if I would call myself a cord cutter. I don't subscribe to cable or satellite, but I still watch all the same content as when I did. Locals via OTA, plus HBO Now & Showtime streaming. And I'll pick up season of the handful of must -see basic cable shows ala carte via Vudu or iTunes.
> 
> So basically I have just switched from one form of pay TV to another. Although a much more flexible & inexpensive one. Basically, streaming is the version of cable that I always wanted, but cable companies would never give me. When I cancelled I said look, I'll stay on but all I want is locals & premiums. I will subscribe to every premium channel you have if you can give me this. But nope, gotta have a $60 base package full of trash & commercials to even be allowed to get to the premiums. The another $20 for equip & fees on top of that.
> 
> So I still get what I want, without all garbage. The other uptick is that I've discovered that Netflix/Amazon/Hulu all have great original programming that I would have missed when my entire TV budget was paying for stuff I didn't want.


You and I are very similar in what we want out of TV. I used to have satellite but mainly watched the major network locals plus Showtime and sometimes HBO. I decided that I'd rather trade away all those basic/extended cable channels and replace them with streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and/or Hulu (I tend to have two of those three at any given time), while also subscribing to Showtime and/or HBO as streaming services. Generally speaking, I get slightly better HD picture quality from both OTA and streaming than I did with DirecTV (which is no slouch when it comes to PQ). And I'm spending a lot less per month.

Question: Do you have ad-free Hulu? If so, have you found that you really don't use the core DVR functionality of your Roamio OTA that much? I use it to record a couple things on CBS and some stuff on PBS. (And I could stream almost all of that stuff for free, with slightly lower PQ, through Plex for CBS on TiVo or through the PBS app on my Apple TV.) I'd say that 85% of my viewing time now is via streaming or live OTA.


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## Eddie501 (Jun 4, 2004)

NashGuy said:


> Question: Do you have ad-free Hulu? If so, have you found that you really don't use the core DVR functionality of your Roamio OTA that much? I use it to record a couple things on CBS and some stuff on PBS. (And I could stream almost all of that stuff for free, with slightly lower PQ, through Plex for CBS on TiVo or through the PBS app on my Apple TV.) I'd say that 85% of my viewing time now is via streaming or live OTA.


Yup. Since Hulu offered the ad free version, that has become the preferred way to keep up with network TV shows. I was trying to watch something recorded on the CW the other day & besides the log bug, there was a constant block of text informing me when the next episode of Supernatural would air. And the occasional hashtag letting me know I could tweet about what was happening on the show. Oh yeah, and an animated promo flits across the bottom every so often promoting some other CW show. I gave up & just finished the show on Hulu.

It's odd that I picked up the Roamio for it's OTA DVR capabilitiy, but rather than use it as a DVR it's mostly become a device to manage One Passes for my streaming content. Which is brilliant anyway, because nobody else has a device the that does this.


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

slowbiscuit said:


> The thing is, with cable bundles it all works out to be the same or even less cost. I've said it before - I'm paying $100/mo. for 75mb HSI + all cable channels + HBO on Comcast. With no other costs because I'm using a single Roamio + Minis.
> 
> If I paid just for internet + all of these streaming services to get what I watch on cable (including the sports I watch) it would cost me MORE money, even without the sports streaming. And I wouldn't get first-run stuff when it airs (with SkipMode now), and I'd constantly have to use slower apps instead of just hitting play from Now Playing.
> 
> I'm trying to figure out how this is a good thing. I get that streaming can be a good substitute for some, but it is not guaranteed to save money nor is it a full replacement for a cable sub.


Well, you are very lucky if that bundle deal sticks more then a year. I had a very similar bundle deal with Charter. After the first year it's up to $150+. No thanks. So I pay $60 for Internet and $20 or so for a "skinny bundle". Netflix I've had forever and would have anyway. Amazon Prime I get for the shipping so the video is just a bonus. Only "extra" would be Hulu and I'm getting that in season because the OTA stations are just terrible with lower thirds taking up the screen so much (yea, I know there is a snow flake out there, I don't need a radar image and lower third with every bingo game in the city that is being cancelled). Cable won't make that go away either.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> My cable channels are not primarily sports. I subscribe to cable because it is so inexpensive. I have never paid so little for so many HD channels. It only runs me $70 a month as part of a bundle on Fios.For me to watch the same content(again non sports) without cable, it would cost me at least 50% more.
> 
> Fifteen years ago I paid $120 a month to DirecTV for only a few HD. channels. And only one premium channel. Now I have over 160 HD channels and most of the premium channels. All for only $70 a month on FiOS. For what you get TV has never been so inexpensive for me over the last 30+ years. And just based on cost, going streaming only would take me way backwards since it would cost so much.


That's the thing with bundling. They make it too good of a deal to drop.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> Well, you are very lucky if that bundle deal sticks more then a year.


I get the new customer double play deal every two years on Comcast, simply by calling and saying I'll switch to something else unless they give it to me. Been doing this for 15 years or so now.

It's really not that hard, but a lot of folks just want to complain about how they jacked the cost instead of calling retention to get almost the same deal they had before. Mine goes up about $10/mo. every 2 years, which is way less than if I just rolled over and let them charge whatever they wanted.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

slowbiscuit said:


> I get the new customer double play deal every two years on Comcast, simply by calling and saying I'll switch to something else unless they give it to me. Been doing this for 15 years or so now.
> 
> It's really not that hard, but a lot of folks just want to complain about how they jacked the cost instead of calling retention to get almost the same deal they had before. Mine goes up about $10/mo. every 2 years, which is way less than if I just rolled over and let them charge whatever they wanted.


I do the same thing, my 2 year plan is up at Comcast in a month or so, I heard that Comcast now has a 3 year plan, anybody ever heard of that ?


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## bonscott87 (Oct 3, 2000)

Well, Charter just tells you to go pound sand. Same with AT&T, my only other option for cable. 

Either way, I cut the cord 6 years ago, don't have to deal with cable company crap and I save a ton of money. Simple as that.


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## NashGuy (May 2, 2015)

lessd said:


> I do the same thing, my 2 year plan is up at Comcast in a month or so, I heard that Comcast now has a 3 year plan, anybody ever heard of that ?


When I logged into my Comcast account recently to look at what deals they were offering, I did see that some packages offered a big price discount (like 1/3 less) if you signed up for a 3-year contract. Or you could pay more with no contract. As far as price guarantees for service without a contract, I don't think I've ever seen those last longer than 12 months, which is the case for my current internet service -- special pricing of $29.99/mo for 25 Mbps for the first year, then up to the regular price of something like $67/mo (which I will definitely not be paying).


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