Cutting the Cable (TV)

a reply to: ugmold
I also wanted to ad this website that lists channels you may expect to het in your area by entering your zip.
TV Fool

I put in a $99 antenna from Wall Mart And hooked it up to the cable splitter. Now I get about 23 channels HD. And we have amazon prime and Kodi. Now its all free.

a reply to: ugmold

We cut the cable about 8 years ago. We have had a Roku device for about 6 years now and love it. Netflix, Hulu, Lifetime, and they add new channels often. I think they have the history channel even. Hulu has almost everything you can watch on tv.












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Cut the cord 5 years ago and have never looked back. Just so you know, there are ways to watch your sports on the Internet. And movies and tv shows also.

Got rid of cable August of last year 2015 and have managed just fine. My tv is internet ready...have a you tube app, netflix etc. There was a mess up with the netfiix account and never fixed it so was turned off. I don't regret for a minute. save 140 per month paying for maybe 3, 4 channels I watched out of 200 I was paying for.

Unless you are very well off and addicted to tv, you are being ripped off. I will never go back

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: coven83

Is Hulu available anywhere in the U.S.? I checked the website but it doesn't list all the available channels. I like the idea of no commercials! Can you get the History, ID, CNN and local channels with HULU? I would love to get rid of my Direct TV. I'm paying for crap I don't even want!

I live in a rural area where the best reception is satellite and was paying DirecTv ~$75 a month for crap programming so I decided to cancel DTV and just go back to local off antenna programming. DTV lowered my monthly bill to ~$35 for the next 12 months if I would stay with them so I did. Threaten to cancel and they will be more than willing to work with you on the standard monthly pricing.

So I'm wondering if others have done this and what you have done, example: Pie Plate Antennae, Online Movie viewing etc.

Online streaming.

Google Free TV streaming.

And if you happen to come across a four letter word that starts with K

You've hit pay dirt.

a reply to: ugmold

I have not had cable for about 10 years now.
I listen to podcasts and also lectures on Youtube on various subjects but i usally search for people to watch such as Richard Dolan,Richard Hoagland,Graham Hancock,Robert Bauval,David Icke,Whitley Strieber,Jim Marrs,David Paulides,Klaus Dona etc and use the filter to see what are the newest radio shows or lectures.
I also watch documentaries on Youtube from Vice,the BBC,National Geographic etc.

Also i watch educational videos from how to plant your own vegetables to repairing my broken Ipod which then turned me into someone that refurbished them and sold them on.

I don't bother with Netflix now not because of the cost but most of the content bores me just like mainstream T.V.

Reading all the posts on this thread because I am about to dump Comcast after 16 years.First , The easy move commercials. What a crock of sh>>.

Haven't had or watched a TV in 8 years... I applaud any decision which leads anyone away from programming.

S&F

Today I tried my only Digital TV (the one in the basement studio) did I scan with the TV of the "Air" channels, I have 37 channels! And they are all twice as clear as Comcast Cable, seriously.

My friend said Comcast "compress's" there signal, this should be a lawsuit what a ripoff Comcast is.

a reply to: ugmold

When I first got cable. It was a mom and pop out of Kentucky called Insight Cable.

When the Comcast and Time Warner merger failed. Insight was bought out by Time Warner.

Just recently Time Warner was bought out by Charter.

For craps sake.,

I fully expect Charter to buy Comcast or vice versa.

I cut the cord a long time ago with the exception of the net.

Have to keep it.

I have cable only because it's the only way I can have wifi, and I have my phone through it as well, even for the business, so not much more to do for channels.

However, I'm trying to make the case for ditching it (at least the channels and the boxes). We already use Google Chrome to stream from our mobiles on occasion, so with things like Hulu, etc., I can't see why we just don't ditch the boxes, and just do this (get a Chrome for each TV). I mean, we have like 9 TVs all over the house (yeah, a little nuts, but eh...it makes sense....living room, our bedroom, our bathroom (great for news in the morning), dining room, kitchen/den, son's room, daughter's room, craft room, shop).

Guess we have to do the math, and see how it works out.

a reply to: ugmold

YES! Last summer. I was a Direct TV customer, no bueno! Discovered Kodi last summer and it blew my couch potato mind. Wwnt to TWC got extreme internet only. I have a Samsung tablet, wifi, and the Samsung hub so I can cast share straight to my TV from the tablet or my phone.

Internet bill $52.00.. Direct TV bill was $270 +

a reply to: Gazrok

I actually pay more to not to get cabe tv due to bundling crap.
The main reason is because comcrap kept doing billing errors and package changes that required me to spend an hour each time with them to get resolved.

So for less headaches I chose to pay more to get less. I only pay for Internet which is 80 bucks a month. If I got cable plus Internet it would be like 65, but I had enough of there bs billing strategies.

I cut the cable a few years ago and have more money than I would have had otherwise. I have a small antenna about like modern day rabbit ears. I pick up 1 channel. I am in the boonies. I want to put up a big antenna to get more channels. Just not 100% sure how I want to go about it. I no longer watch pro football unless ABC has a playoff game. But I really don't miss it.

My gf has netflix and I have my internet and that's all I need.

a reply to: ugmold

Had my own personal independence day weekend and made the call to cut the cord today. Well, my lovely wife did actually. I did all the geeky sweaty work over the last few days so she could make the call.

Why? Our bill was approaching $200/month for TV (3 rooms) with HD, regional sports and a movie channel. Along with 75/75 internet and phone. Add in Netflix and Amazon Prime on top, and now we're at stupid money for something we weren't using effectively. Plus our current 2 year contract pricing expires next week. We'd already been notified of pending price increases. That was enough for me.

How? Well, here's what worked for us. Your mileage may vary. I'll also specifically state that I'm not endorsing any particular product that I mention by name - they're just mentioned for technical clarity.
- We're homeowners, which made this a lot easier than if we were renters.
- We're focused sports nuts. Local US football team for Ms. Chewie37, local NHL team for me.
- Over the years we've collected a bunch of devices that are streaming capable.
- 3 of our 5 TV's are digital ready. Meaning they can receive local Over The Air (OTA) with an antenna.
- All of the local TV station towers are 30-50 miles South/Southeast of us.
- Instead of getting one of those indoor antenna's for each TV, I put an 8' multi-dipole HD antenna in the attic.
- Put a powered pre-amp/4 way splitter in the attic as well. Dropped a non-powered splitter off of one output to get to the 5 I needed.
- Since the original builder/cable company had done all the hard work of running coax to every room, all I had to do was pop the runs off of their splitter and move them over to mine. Hook the coax in each room up to a TV. All the 'big 4' come in crystal clear. Done. Well, almost.
- For the living room big screen, found a converter box that inputs OTA from the antenna and outputs to either RCA or HDMI. In our case HDMI to the stereo receiver, which then goes out DVI to the ancient dinosaur TV.
- For the bedroom, finally knuckled under and just bought a new TV.
- Got an ATA telephony adapter for the phone, connected it to Google Voice. Got a new phone number to go with, but that's cool - we only get spam calls on the land line these days anyway.
- Also found a 911 service - very important if you make the switch to VOIP!
- Signed up for Sony's Playstation Vue product because they offer most of the channels we tended to watch outside of local broadcast. But biggest win for me, the hockey nut - regional sports networks. Including the one that carries our local NHL team. Yay!

End result?
- About a $300 outlay to get everything going - $150 for the new bedroom TV, $30 for the digital converter for the living room TV, $100 for the antenna, some coax and cable ends.
- New price for just 50/50 internet service is $54.99; streaming service is $34.99. Even with taxes & service fees that gets us uner $100 month.
- Conveniently Ignore the ongoing MRC for NetFlix and Prime, and we'll see an ROI on the outlay in just over 3 months.