Cable cutters, rejoice

dpkimmel2001 said:
Anyone else make the switch to streaming only yet?
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I would like to, but I haven't for the reasons Bobby stated.....

BobbyFord said:
Seems like a lot of shuffling.
What’s wrong with cable? I like to get all of my stuff in one spot. Always there (occasionally have to replace the box but the place is right down the street,) lots of channels, convenient...
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<$20 a month for IPTV is great, but I don't want to keep hunting for the next one every couple months when my current service gets shut down. As far as the more "legitimate" services, I have looked into PS Vue, DirecTV Now, Sling, etc. and they seem fine, but for the channels I want, it's barely cheaper than my cable package once you factor in the price for internet.

I have an "unlocked" Firestick (two of them actually) but don't use them much simply because I can't find a reliable source for anything. Kodi has always been a glitchy POS for me. TerrariumTV was great for movies and TV shows but now it's gone, and I've never found a decent live sports streaming option outside of an IPTV provider or a paid cable subscription app.

Cable just can't be beat when it comes to reliability and convenience. Sucks to say, but it's true. There are other options out there I want to look into (Hulu Live?) so I'm not giving up just yet. I have 6 TV's, two Firesticks, two Roku devices....so when the time comes and I finally decide to cut the cord, I'll already be good to go.
 
2 Sweet said:
I would like to, but I haven't for the reasons Bobby stated.....



<$20 a month for IPTV is great, but I don't want to keep hunting for the next one every couple months when my current service gets shut down. As far as the more "legitimate" services, I have looked into PS Vue, DirecTV Now, Sling, etc. and they seem fine, but for the channels I want, it's barely cheaper than my cable package once you factor in the price for internet.

I have an "unlocked" Firestick (two of them actually) but don't use them much simply because I can't find a reliable source for anything. Kodi has always been a glitchy POS for me. TerrariumTV was great for movies and TV shows but now it's gone, and I've never found a decent live sports streaming option outside of an IPTV provider or a paid cable subscription app.

Cable just can't be beat when it comes to reliability and convenience. Sucks to say, but it's true. There are other options out there I want to look into (Hulu Live?) so I'm not giving up just yet. I have 6 TV's, two Firesticks, two Roku devices....so when the time comes and I finally decide to cut the cord, I'll already be good to go.
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When I still had Internet and was giving all the streaming options a go, I tried Hulu live and I hated it. Maybe it was my Internet connection, but it was way more glitchy and froze way more often than all the other streaming options did. I do love the original Hulu though.
 
2 Sweet said:
I would like to, but I haven't for the reasons Bobby stated.....



<$20 a month for IPTV is great, but I don't want to keep hunting for the next one every couple months when my current service gets shut down. As far as the more "legitimate" services, I have looked into PS Vue, DirecTV Now, Sling, etc. and they seem fine, but for the channels I want, it's barely cheaper than my cable package once you factor in the price for internet.

I have an "unlocked" Firestick (two of them actually) but don't use them much simply because I can't find a reliable source for anything. Kodi has always been a glitchy POS for me. TerrariumTV was great for movies and TV shows but now it's gone, and I've never found a decent live sports streaming option outside of an IPTV provider or a paid cable subscription app.

Cable just can't be beat when it comes to reliability and convenience. Sucks to say, but it's true. There are other options out there I want to look into (Hulu Live?) so I'm not giving up just yet. I have 6 TV's, two Firesticks, two Roku devices....so when the time comes and I finally decide to cut the cord, I'll already be good to go.
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I had the initial service go down that I was on. It took all of 15 minutes to be up and running under my current service. Occasionally I check out other services to see what they offer. In two months it will have been a year since I cancelled my Dish Network service. My savings have now totalled $1350. I was paying $150/month for my setup. Now it's $15/month.

I only mention the iptv options from time to time to give a heads up for people to save some $'s.

I did try Vue initially. They were $29/month last February. The same package is now $43/month. Unfortunately those services like Vue, Hulu Live, Yahoo TV, etc continue to raise their prices to the point where they are now comparable to Cable. That's a shame as they were a huge savings as well but they are now as greedy as the rest of them.
 
Brentford said:
When I still had Internet and was giving all the streaming options a go, I tried Hulu live and I hated it. Maybe it was my Internet connection, but it was way more glitchy and froze way more often than all the other streaming options did. I do love the original Hulu though.
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Vue could be a comparable option for you. About the same price. Very reliable and a great DVR section. Their on demand options work well too. Smooth streaming and damn good quality.
 
2 Sweet said:
I would like to, but I haven't for the reasons Bobby stated.....



<$20 a month for IPTV is great, but I don't want to keep hunting for the next one every couple months when my current service gets shut down. As far as the more "legitimate" services, I have looked into PS Vue, DirecTV Now, Sling, etc. and they seem fine, but for the channels I want, it's barely cheaper than my cable package once you factor in the price for internet.

I have an "unlocked" Firestick (two of them actually) but don't use them much simply because I can't find a reliable source for anything. Kodi has always been a glitchy POS for me. TerrariumTV was great for movies and TV shows but now it's gone, and I've never found a decent live sports streaming option outside of an IPTV provider or a paid cable subscription app.

Cable just can't be beat when it comes to reliability and convenience. Sucks to say, but it's true. There are other options out there I want to look into (Hulu Live?) so I'm not giving up just yet. I have 6 TV's, two Firesticks, two Roku devices....so when the time comes and I finally decide to cut the cord, I'll already be good to go.
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Sorry, I justjust re- your last paragraph. My experience differs from what you mention. The reliability had been comporable to every service I've previously had. The convenience has been equally comporable. The portability of the service is probably 2nd only to satellite. I take a fire stick with us when we travel. Any location we have an internet connection we have access to everything that we have from home. It's great to be able to watch our favorite teams regards of where we are. We're huge sports fans though. That may not be important to others but it is too us.

We recently purchased four Toshiba TV's with fire TV built in. They are now hung on the man cave wall. Those for along with our big screens are all streaming or pulling in OTA each and every NFL Sunday. They've been a great addition to the basement.
 
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a stubborn yankee who doesn't put up with ****. So, I'm owed a good bit of money and my DIRECTV bill is behind a little because of it, but it's not behind payment until January 3rd. But they shut it off five days ago, so I'm gonna call them up and cancel. Only have two months left on my contract anyway.

Trying YouTube TV now. I don't like the layout or quality at all, and HBO is absolutely unavailable, but I do get local TV channels. I'll try it a couple more days, but so far, aside from having the local channels, it's ****.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a stubborn yankee who doesn't put up with sh!t. So, I'm owed a good bit of money and my DIRECTV bill is behind a little because of it, but it's not behind payment until January 3rd. But they shut it off five days ago, so I'm gonna call them up and cancel. Only have two months left on my contract anyway.

Trying YouTube TV now. I don't like the layout or quality at all, and HBO is absolutely unavailable, but I do get local TV channels. I'll try it a couple more days, but so far, aside from having the local channels, it's sh!t.
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But you get Youtube Red! Isn't that the highlight of a Youtube TV subscription?
 
This is like the Twilight Zone. The same discussion is going on in another forum. The ever increasing costs, lousy service and with a bazillion channels save for a few shows ''there's never anything good on.''
Then there's the list of never ending options like Hulu, firestick, YouTube, Vue. Then there's the services playable through Xbox and the like.
 
Bobw said:
This is like the Twilight Zone. The same discussion is going on in another forum. The ever increasing costs, lousy service and with a bazillion channels save for a few shows ''there's never anything good on.''
Then there's the list of never ending options like Hulu, firestick, YouTube, Vue. Then there's the services playable through Xbox and the like.
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For me, I only want cable to watch the races and cable news, plus the occasional TV show (Supergirl:wub:, AHS).
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Anyone who knows me knows I'm a stubborn yankee who doesn't put up with sh!t. So, I'm owed a good bit of money and my DIRECTV bill is behind a little because of it, but it's not behind payment until January 3rd. But they shut it off five days ago, so I'm gonna call them up and cancel. Only have two months left on my contract anyway.

Trying YouTube TV now. I don't like the layout or quality at all, and HBO is absolutely unavailable, but I do get local TV channels. I'll try it a couple more days, but so far, aside from having the local channels, it's sh!t.
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You talked about Vue a while back. Did you ever try them? HBO is available through them as well as locals in most areas. Races too. Problem is, they have gone up in price over the past year. Their interface varies depending on what source you use. It is much more user friendly on Roku vs a Firestick. Both work well though.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
You talked about Vue a while back. Did you ever try them? HBO is available through them as well as locals in most areas. Races too. Problem is, they have gone up in price over the past year. Their interface varies depending on what source you use. It is much more user friendly on Roku vs a Firestick. Both work well though.
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I used to have Vue. When I moved to Kenly for a year and couldn't get internet, I signed up with DIRECTV. I'm going to try out a few more streaming services and see what I want to use.

I was going to go with DIRECTV Now but DIRECTV Now won't let me use the guaranteed discounts I get for being an AT&T Unlimited subscriber. I love AT&T phone service, hate DIRECTV altogether.

Neither Playstation Vue nor DIRECTV now offer local channels around here. YouTube has WCTI, WNCT and WITN so I might stick with them. But I can't get HBO at all with them.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
I used to have Vue. When I moved to Kenly for a year and couldn't get internet, I signed up with DIRECTV. I'm going to try out a few more streaming services and see what I want to use.

I was going to go with DIRECTV Now but DIRECTV Now won't let me use the guaranteed discounts I get for being an AT&T Unlimited subscriber. I love AT&T phone service, hate DIRECTV altogether.

Neither Playstation Vue nor DIRECTV now offer local channels around here. YouTube has WCTI, WNCT and WITN so I might stick with them. But I can't get HBO at all with them.
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What about HBO GO or HBO Now? I'm always confused on which one would apply.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
What about HBO GO or HBO Now? I'm always confused on which one would apply.
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HBO Now is standalone.

I'm going to stick with YouTube TV. It has the locals, plus NBCSN, FS1, MSNBC, Smithsonian and Olympic Channel. Only thing it doesn't have is MAVTV.

Might do HBO Now and Lucas Oil TV, but man this can add up fast. I already have Netflix, DC Universe, now YouTube TV. HBO is $15/month and Lucas Oil TV is pricey as ****.

DIRECTV can suck it. I spend most of my TV time watching Netflix anyway.
 
Also on YouTube, the app is much friendlier than the other streaming services. It uses the standard YouTube configuration. Easy to watch on a tablet too.

I need to get some new Roku devices and hook the other TV up.
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
Also on YouTube, the app is much friendlier than the other streaming services. It uses the standard YouTube configuration. Easy to watch on a tablet too.

I need to get some new Roku devices and hook the other TV up.
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Roku's are nice but an Android device like Fire Stick will give you an open architecture allowing for a much wider range of available apps, especially IPTV apps. I have repeated many times on here the cost savings it can provide. It would also give you all of those extras you're looking for.
 
So when you add in all the streaming services do you really save much than just going with cable. I pay like 170 a month for internet and cable. That's with HBO, showtime, starz, and redzone.
 
Michfan said:
So when you add in all the streaming services do you really save much than just going with cable. I pay like 170 a month for internet and cable. That's with HBO, showtime, starz, and redzone.
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It can add up. But at the same time, cable is going the way of the dinosaur. More and more of the cable networks are moving a good chunk of content to streaming-only services, so you'd have to pay for them anyway on top of cable.

Right now, I have Netflix ($10/month), DC Universe ($8/month), YouTubeTV ($40/month) and will probably add in HBO Now ($15/month). But all that combined is still cheaper than DIRECTV ($135/month and was going to increase in March to $165/month).

I kind of wish AT&T would put HBO Now, DC Universe and the other streaming service they're about to launch and package it together, but this company is greedy as ****.
 
Michfan said:
So when you add in all the streaming services do you really save much than just going with cable. I pay like 170 a month for internet and cable. That's with HBO, showtime, starz, and redzone.
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An IPTV is by far the cheapest route. One app, all channels. I'm paying $15/month.
 
Cable bill is going up: Comcast, Dish, DirecTV to raise TV prices to counter cord-cutting

Another year, another increase to your monthly pay-TV bill.

Giants including Comcast, Dish and DirecTV plan to raise rates again in the new year, a move that could boost revenue but risks alienating subscribers who have been ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in record numbers.

Cable and satellite providers are hoping to squeeze more money from consumers who remain loyal to their packages with hundreds of channels, Philip Cusick, a JPMorgan Chase analyst, said in a note this week, even though "this strategy could accelerate video sub declines."
 
People are dropping premium channels and dropping program tiers, from platinum to gold to silver to bronze to lead tiers to contain costs. To combat this cable companies raise rates to squeeze every friggen nickel out of ya. Bastages.
 
PlayStation Vue is On Sale (Ends Soon)

Today Sony started a new sale on PlayStation Vue. Right now the PlayStation Vue’s Core Plan, typically $49.99 a month, is on sale for just $29.99 a month for the next two months. All new subscribers can get the deal, and it looks like if you don’t have the Core Plan, you can upgrade and get the sale. If you want this deal you better hurry as it will end January 20th, 2019.

https://www.cordcuttersnews.com/playstation-vue-is-on-sale-ends-soon/
 
For anyone that has a firestick, here's a video describing how to install Terrarium TV. Terrarium TV gives you access to 1000's of television shows and movies from a single location. I installed this yesterday on three of my firesticks. It seems to work well. All of the television shows that I was looking for are available. There are a ton of movies here as well. The video is pretty short and the instructions are easy to follow. It took much longer to actually watch the video than it does to perform the install. I did the install on the 3rd firestick in under two minutes.

There are also other video's on his channel for installation on a PC or MAC as well as other video's on other services.

 
To anyone who has or had satellite tv, how badly will weather effect the signal? We get all the extremes from severe storms, to occasional rain, to snow storms and to what seems to be never ending wind. Dealing with that plus living in the middle of a big city, will I lose signal so often that it would make sense to pay a bit more to go with Cox instead?
 
Brentford said:
To anyone who has or had satellite tv, how badly will weather effect the signal? We get all the extremes from severe storms, to occasional rain, to snow storms and to what seems to be never ending wind. Dealing with that plus living in the middle of a big city, will I lose signal so often that it would make sense to pay a bit more to go with Cox instead?
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If the dish is aimed/aligned properly, loss of signal should be rare. If its raining hard enough to lose signal, there are probably other things that you should be worrying about at that moment.

You would need to be able to mount this dish with an unobstructed southern view. If there are other buildings in the way, it's not going to work.

I was a long time subscriber to a few different dish service providers over a 25+ year period. As time progressed so did their service. The expense drove me away, not the service.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
If the dish is aimed/aligned properly, loss of signal should be rare. If its raining hard enough to lose signal, there are probably other things that you should be worrying about at that moment.

You would need to be able to mount this dish with an unobstructed southern view. If there are other buildings in the way, it's not going to work.

I was a long time subscriber to a few different dish service providers over a 25+ year period. As time progressed so did their service. The expense drove me away, not the service.
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I am living in an apartment building and I have seen a couple that are mounted on the North side of the buildings that appear to not be placed high enough to be unobstructed by the building itself. I might have to find out who here has dish and ask them how the reception is.
 
Brentford said:
I am living in an apartment building and I have seen a couple that are mounted on the North side of the buildings that appear to not be placed high enough to be unobstructed by the building itself. I might have to find out who here has dish and ask them how the reception is.
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I don't even know how that is possible. DirecTV and Dish both use satellites that are in a geosynchronous orbit. Meaning that they are orbiting the earth at a set altitude above the equator and they circle the earth in the same direction as the earth rotates. That allows for them to be in the same location in the sky. I don't know your location though. I wrote that assuming that you are in the northern hemisphere. If you live south of the equator than yes, the dish would then be pointed to the north.
 
Brentford said:
I am living in an apartment building and I have seen a couple that are mounted on the North side of the buildings that appear to not be placed high enough to be unobstructed by the building itself. I might have to find out who here has dish and ask them how the reception is.
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Here is a tool that you can use to determine the direction that the dish would need to be aimed. It uses your location and the type of dish you are installing, or having installed. I don't know what service you were thinking of. The two most popular seem to be DirecTV and Dish Network. They are both located at the bottom of the dropdown list provided after clicking on the link below.

For DirecTV, use the option for DirecTV 5 LNB(99,101,103,110,119W)

For Dish Network, use either the Dish 1000.2 or Dish 1000.4

It'll return information that looks like this example.....

Satellite: Dish 1000.4 (61.5W, 72.7W, 77W)
Elevation: 42.0°
Azimuth (true): 169.2°
Azimuth (magn.): 178.8°

The Azmuth (Magn.) # is the direction to point the dish.
The Elevation # is the degrees above the horizon.

https://www.dishpointer.com/
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
I don't even know how that is possible. DirecTV and Dish both use satellites that are in a geosynchronous orbit. Meaning that they are orbiting the earth at a set altitude above the equator and they circle the earth in the same direction as the earth rotates. That allows for them to be in the same location in the sky. I don't know your location though. I wrote that assuming that you are in the northern hemisphere. If you live south of the equator than yes, the dish would then be pointed to the north.
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So I was actually wrong on the location. They are on the Northern end of the building, but they are placed right outside the front door which faces the West, allowing them to have basically a clear view to the South, minus a few trees which I'd assume wouldnt cause much interference. Sorry for the confusion.
 
Brentford said:
So I was actually wrong on the location. They are on the Northern end of the building, but they are placed right outside the front door which faces the West, allowing them to have basically a clear view to the South, minus a few trees which I'd assume wouldnt cause much interference. Sorry for the confusion.
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That link I posted just above will tell you exactly the direction. They also make apps for you phone that will show you where the satellite is as you point your phone. It would let you know if you have an unobstructed view. If you can't find an app, let me know and I'll look one up for you.
 
Brentford said:
To anyone who has or had satellite tv, how badly will weather effect the signal? We get all the extremes from severe storms, to occasional rain, to snow storms and to what seems to be never ending wind. Dealing with that plus living in the middle of a big city, will I lose signal so often that it would make sense to pay a bit more to go with Cox instead?
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I live in the SC, and we get some heavy T-storms in the summer. During those times I lose the Dish Network signal about every other week, but that's mostly when the wind is from the west and blows tree branches in front of the dish. In defense of both, the river birch was a lot smaller when the dish was mounted on my roof almost a decade ago. Other than westerly wind storms, rain only causes me to lose the signal once or twice a year. As DPK said, at those times I've better things to worry about, and rain that heavy drowns out the audio anyway.

Wind by itself is never a problem. It takes rain to make my tree branches heavy enough to hang down level with the dish, and wind to move them over to it. Just wind alone? Those things are mounted rock steady. If there's enough wind to move the dish around, I'm already hiding in a central room with the doors closed.
 
dpkimmel2001 said:
Anyone else make the switch to streaming only yet?
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I've been using DirectvNOW for about a month and am happy. Some buffering issues in primetime with two Tv's going at times. What router do you have?
 
Ray_ said:
I've been using DirectvNOW for about a month and am happy. Some buffering issues in primetime with two Tv's going at times. What router do you have?
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NetGear N750 Dual Band Gigabit Router - Model WNDR4300V2

Internet service
  • 300 Mbps Download
  • 20 Mbps Upload
 
Okay, let's see if I understand what the 'Cutting for Idiots' sites are trying to explain to me.
  • There are a variety of devices and services.
  • Each service carries a variety of channels, but few / none? of them have the range of channels available from cable or satellite.
  • Each service is available on some of the devices, but few devices carry (?) all of them.
  • All of the device / service combos require a high-speed, wireless Internet connection.
Questions, round 1:
  • Is a separate device required if I have a 'Smart TV'?
  • I have three TVs. How much bandwidth do I need? Is DSL sufficient or do I need service from a cable company?
  • If two of the TVs aren't 'smart', do I need a device for each of the other two or do they share a device?
  • Someone mentioned that the services provide a DVR-like service. Are recordings available across all TVs?
  • And the most important question, is my technology-challenged Darling Bride going to be able to find what she wants without regular assistance?
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Is a separate device required if I have a 'Smart TV'?
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It depends on what SmartTV you buy and what apps it has. Most come with the standard Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube/TV, VUDU... some of the bigger name brands (Samsung, LG, Vizio, Sharp) have more content. So, you shouldn't need a Roku or Fire Stick, but those devices also have more content.

A lot of generic brand TVs, such as Insignia and TCL, are moving toward just running off Roku.

Charlie Spencer said:
  • I have three TVs. How much bandwidth do I need? Is DSL sufficient or do I need service from a cable company?
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DSL should be good for using one, maybe two TVs, but three or more gets tough. It depends on what your speed is though. You can get by on as little as 0.5 mbps, but 5 mbps is preferred for HD content.

Charlie Spencer said:
  • If two of the TVs aren't 'smart', do I need a device for each of the other two or do they share a device?
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You'll need a device for each/

Charlie Spencer said:
  • Someone mentioned that the services provide a DVR-like service. Are recordings available across all TVs?
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Yes. The DVR on Playstation Vue, YouTube, DIRECTV Now and the other streaming cable services are cloud based, so its linked to your account.

Charlie Spencer said:
  • And the most important question, is my technology-challenged Darling Bride going to be able to find what she wants without regular assistance?
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You can't just pick it up, type "220" on your remote and go. But you'll be able to pull up a guide. I don't know how Vue is since they redid the Roku app. YouTube TV, however, knows I watch NBCSN and MSNBC a lot, so those two network's live programs are always the first thing I see when I pull the app up. It also tracks what I watch so whenever there's an NFL game or some sort of race, it's also the first thing I see on the app.

In some ways, it's actually easier, at least with YouTube TV. Plus, I love YouTube's mobile app and website much better than any other I've used since it runs off the faster, more secure, easier to use HTML5 instead of the slow, archaic, insecure, garbage Adobe Flash platform.
 
Charlie Spencer said:
Okay, let's see if I understand what the 'Cutting for Idiots' sites are trying to explain to me.
  • There are a variety of devices and services.
  • Each service carries a variety of channels, but few / none? of them have the range of channels available from cable or satellite.
  • Each service is available on some of the devices, but few devices carry (?) all of them.
  • All of the device / service combos require a high-speed, wireless Internet connection.
Questions, round 1:
  • Is a separate device required if I have a 'Smart TV'?
  • I have three TVs. How much bandwidth do I need? Is DSL sufficient or do I need service from a cable company?
  • If two of the TVs aren't 'smart', do I need a device for each of the other two or do they share a device?
  • Someone mentioned that the services provide a DVR-like service. Are recordings available across all TVs?
  • And the most important question, is my technology-challenged Darling Bride going to be able to find what she wants without regular assistance?
Click to expand...
The smart TV's that I have all have apps for the standard cord cutting services.

If you wanted to try out an IPTV service, I'd suggest the firestick. They are inexpensive and simple to set up.

With the setup that I mentioned above I can stream 5 televisions in HD without buffering.

You'd need a streaming device for each television. I bought mine from Amazon when they run their specials.

The IPTV service that I subscribe to has a on demand section. Basically a dvr section. Everything that is broadcast is recorded and available for an extended period of time. There are a bunch of free services out there that have an endless amount of on demand shows/movies.

You could run into problems with the bride. I know I do. Mine, not yours.
 
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