Cord Cutters Unite

[Tink_83]

We've had Sling TV for a while now, but they changed their plan so for DH to get the channels he likes and for DD to have Disney Jr the cost has gone up significantly (from like 25 to 40) Anyway, I use to love it but between Hulu, Netflix (I'd probably still have that so I'm not sure if I should really count that), Sling TV, CBS and HBO I'm beginning to wonder if going back to cable may be less expensive!?!

 

[DawnM]

We pay $30/mo for cable. Since the alternatives would end up costing more, we will stick to cable TV. We purchased our own Tivos with lifetime years ago, so those are paid for and we use them with our cable TV.

We just haven't found an alternative to warrant getting rid of it.

 

[dreiwhit]

This is exactly what we do. I don't miss cable or satellite at all! My husband has a hard time missing out on some sports, but he can catch some of it online.

There is one show that I miss on the Discovery Channel, but we're able to see the rest of what we watched OTA , on Youtube (for my Indy Car races) or on Hulu. Other than that, I don't miss Dish Network

 

[Imagineer5]

We pay $83/month, down from the $255 that Comcast had creeped up to. The $83 covers Verizon Fios internet & home phone (have this due to alarm system) and Hulu. Prior to cutting the cord we had Amazon Prime for free ship mainly but use it time to time, and a FireStick which I added Kodi to and use a lot. We have an antenna for local HD channels. hulu satisfies about 90% of our regular TV-watching needs (acts just like a DVR that we basically solely watched back in our Comcast days!) and the Kodi app on FireStick allows me to basically watch the rest.

I don't miss cable at all!

(We aren't sports people, so that wasn't an issue).

 

[fifthdimensiondweller]

We cut the chord when we moved in together. We save around $1200 a year (figuring about $100 a month) and that's usually most of the cost of a Disney trip or Disney cruise in the off season for the two of us. Knowing that is all it took to make sure we NEVER go back. We use Netflix and Amazon prime (since we already have prime anyways) and that's enough for us. We rent movies on YouTube sometimes if we really want to see them or do Redbox. We tried a few free trials of things like slingtv but it didn't work well for us. LOVE the money we save every month. It allows us to follow our dreams of traveling where a lot of our friends who pay for lots of channels can't!

 

[basicprincess24]

We are cord cutters - didn't know we had a name until now! We have Netflix and Amazon prime which we stream through the xbox. We do have an apple tv which we've had for a couple years. Its the first generation, and it tends to crash a lot so we've stopped using it. We stream HBO through xbox too (gotta have John Oliver and GoT!) but we use my in-laws login. My MIL somehow always negotiates free HBO into their cable subscription, but if that ever went away I think we'd just pay for it. Still less $$ than cable!

The one thing DH misses is sports, but he says its not worth paying for cable.

 

[adamreisinger]

I cut the cord late last year and switched to DirecTV NOW when they were offering a free AppleTV if you pre-paid for 3 months. I soon discovered that I actually very rarely watch live TV and I'm fine watching most of my favorite shows time-shifted through the various network apps, but the $35 a month for DTVNOW is essentially my "emergency backup" fee for when I watch live sports (usually the NBA on TNT, ESPN or NBATV -- all 3 of which are available on DTVNOW). That's down from the $159 a month I was paying for regular DirecTV service. The $124 I save each month basically pays for an extra Disney vacation each year.

 

[Lain]

Ok, so I'm going to chime in on our initial impressions of YouTube TV.

We've had Playstation Vue for the past year after canceling horrible Comcast. It took a little getting used to, but the service quality and support have gotten consistently better. We are able to watch live and DVR television on our Playstation 4, Apple TV, iPhones, and iPads. Vue offers its own native app for each of those platforms, and we can use our Vue login to access our packaged channels' own apps. The channel selection includes most of what we watched previously with cable, streaming quality is great, but the user interface and guide could use some work to be a little more intuitive. Vue's pricing is straightforward, and we love that there are no contracts, hidden fees, or end to promotional pricing. We can load Playstation Store credit into our Playstation Network wallets to pay for the service, and Playstation Store gift cards can often be bought for less than face value. Even with the cost of a separate ISP service, Vue and internet together still costs us less than what we were paying Comcast under a promotional bundle.

We're in San Francisco so when YouTube TV came out with the Bay Area as one of its initial five markets, we decided to give it a try. YouTube TV is offering a first month free trial, and costs $35/month after that (although I've seen $39.99 in other fine print -- I have a few weeks to figure that out). Most importantly, YouTube TV's channel lineup includes most of the channels we watch, as well as a lot of sports channels we don't. If the pricing is really $35/month, that would make YouTube TV cheaper than Vue, and we wouldn't mind saving some money if we can get most of the channels we watch. However, I'd caution that YouTube TV is not quite ready for primetime, or rather most people won't be ready to adopt YouTube TV as it currently exists.

We have an Android TV with Chromecast built-in. Chromecast is required to stream YouTube TV. So we signed up for YouTube TV through its website. The signup process was painless: we logged in with our Gmail account, the site automatically checked our IP address to determine whether we are in a YouTube TV market, we entered our payment information in case we decide to keep the service after the trial month, and we received an email that we were ready to go.

We could watch YouTube TV on our computer using the Chrome browser. We found the YouTube TV for our iPhones and downloaded that so we could access the service on our phones if we wanted to. But ... how do we watch YouTube TV on our TV? We tried accessing YouTube TV through the YouTube app on our Android TV, but that didn't work. Funny thing is, the YouTube app for our Android TV has a link in the sidebar prompting us to sign up for YouTube TV, but even though we're signed up we couldn't access the service from that app. We searched the Google Play store for the YouTube TV app for our Android TV; but even though the search term for "YouTube TV" pops up when searching the Google Play store, there is no app available to download.

We searched around Google's website and a few other sites for an answer, but didn't find anything definite. I ended up chatting with a YouTube TV support agent, and he told me that there's is no standalone app or service for Android TVs right now, and the only way to watch YouTube TV on our TV would be to first access YouTube TV through Chrome on our computer or the YouTube TV app on our iPhones, then "cast" or stream the feed from our computer or phone to our TV. He explained YouTube TV has only been out a week and Google is working hard to add more support in the future. Fine enough, but I'm surprised that Google launched this service without at least a standalone app for Android TV, which is their own OS for smart TVs. The need for a peripheral device to cast a stream to your TV seems so clunky, unintuitive for most people, and we noticed rather poor picture quality when the stream finally showed up on our TV. We're rather tech savvy and have most of the latest gadgets, and the whole setup process was difficult even for us.

 

[snoodledoo]

We finally cut the cord a couple months ago. We had DirecTv, cancelled it and went with Playstation VUE. I don't remember which package it is, but it is under $40/mo. We get Fox & CBS thru VUE, and then ABC & NBC are On Demand only. Which means you can't FF through the commercials with On Demand. For savings of nearly $100/mo, I can live with that for the few shows we watch On Demand. We watch The CW through the app on the Fire Sticks.We still get the DVR feature and all the stations we want, except History channel. There are some features I miss on DirecTV (such as customizing the Guide), but I can definitely live without them. We have a PS4 in the living room, and Fire Sticks for the other TVs. DH has been quite surprised and happy with all the sports he can still watch. Actually, he watches more ESPN than anything. Football season will be the real test for him. (Vue has MLB network and our local Fox Sports channel, plus the games broadcast on Fox & CBS).

 

[OneThree]

Football season will be the real test for him. (Vue has MLB network and our local Fox Sports channel, plus the games broadcast on Fox & CBS).

Had Vue last NFL season and with the local OTA channels for most games and the Red Zone add-on it worked out great. I do miss Sunday Ticket though but not the cost!

 

[dreiwhit]

Ok, so I'm going to chime in on our initial impressions of YouTube TV.

Thanks for the information!!

 

[jsmla]

We cut last August. We have a Roku, Amazon Prime and Netflix. We also subscribe to Sling for DH's sports although I must admit that I enjoy having HGTV too. Thinking about dumping Netflix, we rarely watch it.

We do have the occasional buffering problem but nothing that we can't deal with

I really, really miss the DVR. How does that work without cable or satellite?

 

[snoodledoo]

I really, really miss the DVR. How does that work without cable or satellite?

With PS VUE, it is a cloud DVR. We add our shows (once) and whenever there is a new episode, we select it from one of the menus. I think the amount of shows is unlimited, but you have to watch it within 28 days (I believe) or it could be purged from the cloud.

 

[dreiwhit]

I really, really miss the DVR. How does that work without cable or satellite?

Just an FYI, but for OTA TV, we bought a converter box that has a built in DVR (it has a pass through for digital signals if you have a digital TV.) You plug in a USB hard drive, and set it up just like you would set up the DVR you got from cable or satellite.

 

[jsmla]

Just an FYI, but for OTA TV, we bought a converter box that has a built in DVR (it has a pass through for digital signals if you have a digital TV.) You plug in a USB hard drive, and set it up just like you would set up the DVR you got from cable or satellite.

Is there a subscription fee with this? I kind of need advice for the technologically challenged! We have a digital (but not smart) TV

 

[dreiwhit]

Is there a subscription fee with this? I kind of need advice for the technologically challenged! We have a digital (but not smart) TV

No subscription fee. We bought this item off Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IYETYX8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any smart TV features, just an OTA tuner, guide and DVR. You have to buy a portable USB hard drive to go with it.

My son set it up, and afterwards, you can use the DVR feature for OTA TV. It is kind of flaky, though. I once recorded 22 hours of TV for my daughter when I meant to DVR her favorite 30 minute cartoon!

 

[tarak]

I just did this today. We've had Verizon fios for years and the service was fine but the price was getting ridiculous. We watch very little broadcast TV. I've had Netflix and Amazon Prime for ages, and that's where I get most of my entertainment. I convinced my husband to try Direct TV now. I chose the higher-priced option with a three-month prepayment to get the free Apple TV. I think you get a free Amazon fire stick with one-month's service. We have two smart TVs, so it seemed like a no-brainer. Even paying for a higher-priced package with direct tv now, we'll save about a hundred dollars a month from what we were paying and have twice the internet speed we had before.

 

[jsmla]

No subscription fee. We bought this item off Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IYETYX8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'm pretty sure it doesn't have any smart TV features, just an OTA tuner, guide and DVR. You have to buy a portable USB hard drive to go with it.

My son set it up, and afterwards, you can use the DVR feature for OTA TV. It is kind of flaky, though. I once recorded 22 hours of TV for my daughter when I meant to DVR her favorite 30 minute cartoon!

Thank you so much, I'll pass this on to DH. He works on Saturdays and football is an issue!

 

[Dashzap]

We cut the cord in 2004. We use antenna for broadcast channels, and have youtube and amazon through our internet. We used to have Netflix but found we never used it.

 

[dreiwhit]

Thank you so much, I'll pass this on to DH. He works on Saturdays and football is an issue!

You're welcome! Good luck with it.

FWIW, I've thought that streaming is similar to cable TV back in the late 70s/early 80s. Look for more devices and for the streaming services to add more options in the future.

But, I really hope the streaming services resist the temptation to follow in the path of the cable TV and satellite TV providers and not jack prices up into the stratosphere. If so, we'll be cutting the stream in the future....