Getting off Cable - Looking for suggestions
Hello,
I'm finally cutting the cord on cable TV. I was paying $138/mo after tax for 200 channels, HBO/Showtime, two boxes, DVR, and internet services. Spectrum sent me a letter saying my promotion ended and I will now be paying $159/mo before tax. Naturally, I called and said I'm out. They came back with a basic plan of $149/mo before tax for 120 channels, two boxes, DVR, and internet. I said no thanks. So now I only pay for cable internet at $65/mo before tax.
I'm looking for suggestion on where to go now, if anyone can help it would be appreciated. I will warn you - it's not just about price - I like convenience. I don't want to have to make watching TV a chore, where I'm having to manage too many subscriptions or streaming issues. Cable is pretty simple, which is why I stayed on it for so long (and I'm a bit old school i guess).
My interests are:
-Basic channels (ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, etc)
-Sports, particularly football (ESPN channels, NFL, Golf, etc)
-HBO series
-Certain TV series in a variety of places (i.e. AMC, FX, etc) depending on recommendations from Bald Move or others.
Any advice would be great. Thanks!
I'm finally cutting the cord on cable TV. I was paying $138/mo after tax for 200 channels, HBO/Showtime, two boxes, DVR, and internet services. Spectrum sent me a letter saying my promotion ended and I will now be paying $159/mo before tax. Naturally, I called and said I'm out. They came back with a basic plan of $149/mo before tax for 120 channels, two boxes, DVR, and internet. I said no thanks. So now I only pay for cable internet at $65/mo before tax.
I'm looking for suggestion on where to go now, if anyone can help it would be appreciated. I will warn you - it's not just about price - I like convenience. I don't want to have to make watching TV a chore, where I'm having to manage too many subscriptions or streaming issues. Cable is pretty simple, which is why I stayed on it for so long (and I'm a bit old school i guess).
My interests are:
-Basic channels (ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, etc)
-Sports, particularly football (ESPN channels, NFL, Golf, etc)
-HBO series
-Certain TV series in a variety of places (i.e. AMC, FX, etc) depending on recommendations from Bald Move or others.
Any advice would be great. Thanks!
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Every person is different. For me, I use my AppleTV and am subscribed to Netflix, Hulu (ad-free pre-recorded stuff, not live tv), Sling for Live TV, and Shudder (a horror streaming service). It really meets everything I need. But that isn't going to fit everyone of course.
What I like is that I also get access to many of the channels apps as well.
What you’ll need to do is make priorities as far as viewing. Most of the streaming TV services offer locals, but that is largely dependent on where you live (they all have tools to let you see what locals are available). You also have the option of using an antenna for locals (there are quite a few hardware and software solutions for DVRing those OTA channels) Sports will be tougher, but it’s still possible. What’s available is largely dependent on who owns the rights to what’s being aired.
Its going to take some leg work to get everything set up and for you to get used to it. Once you do however you’ll be able to get a fairly close representation of cable via streaming.
Does anyone else you know who has cable willing to let you sort of "jack their feed?" So my parents have the full cable package with all of the bells and whistles and we are cord cutters. Since they have no need for the internet portion of their cable, and they don't mind sharing their cable company account login information with us, we have put the aps for AMC, HBO, BBC, Showtime, ESPN, NBC, ABC, etc., etc. on our Roku and Fire Stick and now get those channels and their on demand services using their cable subscription. So many channels have these sorts of services now-a-days (I can't speak to the Golf channel, but I believe all of the other ones you listed) that you can totally get them. You'll still have commercials to deal with, but you can get them for free that way if you know someone who will let you use their info. Plus, no fuss, no bills, no nothing. Just aps to select.
We also use Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon and have been really happy. I will say that Hulu changed their interface recently and it is completely awful, but once you have navigated through their BS it does have a lot of great stuff. We also will buy episodes of things that aren't covered, or things that we don't want to watch commercials for on Amazon from time to time. To keep to our budget we kind of allow ourselves one running show a week that we will treat ourselves to.
Sling sucks! It is an infuriating ap. It was constantly kicking us out and making us reboot and it was just a constant battle and we finally gave up a month or so ago.
For what it's worth, I would definitely go with a Roku over a Firestick. Our Firestick is fine, but they cost about the same and the Roku interface is much better because the Firestick leans towards Amazon (makes sense being an Amazon product) and it's just not as user friendly. I could be wrong but the Firestick feels more limited to me. Also, we had our first Roku for at least 6 years or so before it started to get buggy on us and we finally replaced it this Black Friday. We've always had the box ones and not the ones that look like flash drives so I can't speak to any difference, but I love our new "box." Works beautifully and I think it only cost around 50 or 60 bucks (it was on sale though, not really sure what they normally cost, but I believe they're pretty affordable for what you get).
I get by with a combination on the MLB TV package, an over the air antenna, Netflix and Amazon prime (mainly for the shipping). I subscribe to HBO now for a couple months whenever there is a show I really want to watch like GoT. Youtube TV looks like a promising option if it's available in your area. I tried Sling and thought it was pretty buggy and worthless. I decided I wouldn't give more money to monopoly entertainment companies anymore. I despise Comcast and once we got Fiber internet in our area I get away from giving them anything. I went from a 70 dollar 50mbit plan to a 70 dollar gigabit plan.
If you really want to cord cut you'll have to make some sacrifices in both convenience and some of the channels you can get. If you don't want that hassle then just pony up the money and wait a few more years until some internet provider can put together a full package that can blow away the cable giants. We just aren't there yet, but we've come a long way in the last 10 years imo, and some of the packages are getting closer.
Thinking of trying Youtube TV instead, as I'm also about to cut the cord (if Xfinity won't lower my bill back to a reasonable level).
I picked Playstation Vue, primarily bc it supports multiple profiles (wife and kids), has an unlimited 30 day DVR built in, and the UI is close to cable, but better. SlingTV was just too gimmicky with the orange and blue shit, and very cumbersome to find stuff. Hulu didn't have a DVR, and I need to be able to pause stuff. They have sports and every local channel that I care about, except ABC (they had it, but recently had some beef with Sinclair). I have a HD antenna to get ABC.
Also, have HBO NOW via Vue, Amazon Prime VIdeo (from shipping), Netflix, a free Hulu trial for Handmaid's Tale, and NFL Sunday Ticket.TV. Shit adds up, but I already had those things + DirectTv.
1. You have to wait for a show to finish before you can watch it, and there is no "watch from the beginning" option.
2. Sometimes if there are multiple showings it will tell you that episode is "coming soon" even if it already aired.
3. The stream will randomly freeze, and the only way to fix it is shut Vue down and restart it.
On the other hand, I haven't had any issues with Youtube TV so far and would highly recommend.
https://www.suppose.tv/tv
2. Yep.
3. I have had this problem on the previous generation AppleTV, but never on the Smart TV or the 4K Apple TV.
I will look into Youtube TV. Didn't know they had DVR.